


Thursday's Child

by zabjade



Series: Far to Go [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-24 13:21:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 33
Words: 134,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6155038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zabjade/pseuds/zabjade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after the events of “The Replacement”, Buffy and Spike are accidentally caught up in a demon fertility ritual, leading to a very strange pregnancy. Compelled by the ritual to do whatever it takes to protect it, Buffy has to deal with an angry Riley and an equally angry Spike while trying to keep her baby safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author’s Note:** This starts between “The Replacement” and “Out of My Mind,” so before Spike’s subconscious finally clues him in to the fact that he’s in love with Buffy.

**Warning:** This chapter contains non-graphic rape.

 

**…**

 

There was a bounce to Buffy’s step as she walked through the cemetery. Xander’s two sides were all togethery, he had moved away from the nastiness of the basement – and away from the even nastier situation that was his family – and Riley had told her he loved both sides of her, the slayer and the girl. Everything in the world of Buffy was of the good.

Well, it should have been anyway. The bounce started to fade. Riley’s mouth had said he accepted both sides of her, but his actions…. The last couple of days, his actions had been shouting, “I am a big, macho guy, here to help the weak little girl.” He’d wanted to come on patrol with her. He hadn’t said it – she’d done her whole babble-girl routine before heading out specifically so he couldn’t get a word in edgewise – but she’d known.

She patrolled with the others a lot, but there were times when she just needed some solitary slay time. Her friends got that. Why didn’t Riley? _He’s supposed to be the one. Why doesn’t he get this stuff? Heck,_ Spike _seems to understand me better than Riley does sometimes._ Of course, Spike had always had a disturbing ability to see right through her, so maybe it wasn’t entirely fair to hold that against Riley.

She didn’t really feel like being fair. She felt like slaying something. The sound of guttural voices chanting drifted to her on the wind, and she smiled, perking up again. Time to take out some demons.

 

**…**

 

_I have got to stop torturing myself like this,_ Spike thought as he made his way through the cemetery towards his crypt. He’d just spent a good chunk of his night at the Bronze, chatting up the sweet little college girls he couldn’t so much as take a nibble from. He told himself – as he always did – that it would be the last time.

The truth was, he’d always enjoyed talking to women almost as much as eating them. It kept him going back to the club time after time, even though it was a horrible reminder of all that the tin soldiers had taken away from him. That need to be around and talk to women. To not be _alone_. Well, that and the fried onion flowers. Those things were bloody fantastic.

_How do I love thee?_  
_So delicious and oniony._  
_Thy batter is crisp, petals sharp-tasting_  
_Such a glorious sight mine eyes do behold_  
_A delicate flower, burnished gold  
_ _And only a fool would shun thee_

Spike froze in absolute horror as he realized he’d just composed a poem to _onion flowers_. Good god, what was this bloody town _doing_ to him? Normally his inner nancy-boy poet stayed safely locked away unless there was a woman involved. His overactive imagination supplied him with a vision of consuming onion petals off of a woman’s nude body. Which only reminded him that he currently didn’t have a woman. He was a pathetic, lonely shadow of a vampire living on animal blood like a filthy hobo.

Ugh. And he was getting perilously close to brooding. He shook off the mood as best he could and started moving again. A little telly and just enough booze to mellow him out, and he’d be right as rain in no time.

_Or I could just go and pester the slayer,_ he thought with a grin as he spotted the little blonde thorn in his side stalking through the cemetery. She was heading towards the So’voriku demons he’d seen setting up a ritual earlier. The new telly he’d installed would still be there after sunrise. Best to get his slayer taunting in while he could.

The rest of the night’s entertainment decided on, he trailed along behind her, quiet enough that she couldn’t hear him. She should have been able to sense him, but she was hyper-focused on her current prey. He was able to get close enough to practically whisper in her ear.

“They’re pacifists for the most part, you know.” He grinned as she jumped slightly before whirling and backing away to glare at him. “That’s why I didn’t bother to take ‘em out. No sport to it. Though I hear they can get a mite bit violent if you threaten their sprogs.”

Before Buffy could say anything – or punch him in the nose for daring to exist in her immediate proximity – the chanting stopped and a wave of magic swept through the cemetery, sending her staggering with the force of it. He didn’t know if her reaction was because she was closer to the magical ground zero or something else, but it only made him shiver slightly as a weird tingly sensation zinged through his body.

“Well, that was – ” He was interrupted by the slayer suddenly tackling him to the ground, pinning him flat on his back. She sat up and slid back so she was sitting on his thighs.

“Bloody hell, slayer,” he groused, propping himself up on his elbows. There was a strange, glazed look in her eyes that made him uneasy, but he kept up the façade of bravado. “What was that all about? Normally you just go for the nose.”

Her only response was an annoyed-sounding grunt as she started unbuckling his belt. A frisson of panic tingled up his spine along with the burgeoning feeling of utter, complete helplessness. It was something that had become all too horrifyingly familiar since being chipped. He shifted his weight onto his right elbow and lifted his left arm to slap at Buffy’s hands hard enough to send a warning twinge of pain through his head. It didn’t deter her in the slightest.

_Bloody hell,_ he mentally snarled, anger starting to burn away the edges of panic. By all rights, he should have been snuggled up somewhere far, far away with Dru. Instead, he was in bloody Sunnydale, getting pawed at by the spell-crazed mega bitch who had been either directly or indirectly responsible for everything that had gone wrong for him in the past few years. And he couldn’t even effectively defend himself without incapacitating levels of pain.

“Oi, keep your filthy mitts off!” he yelled as she finished with his belt and began tugging at his zipper. “You must be at least this abso-sodding-lutely _not_ the bloody slayer to ride the Spike.”

She continued to ignore him, pulling down his zipper with a single-minded intensity that was downright terrifying. In desperation, he punched her, hoping the blow would bring her to her senses. The chip fired – as he’d known it would – sending him flat to his back in agony.

_Oh thank god,_ he thought muzzily through the pain as her weight was suddenly gone. The relief was short lived. There was a rustle of cloth, followed by his jeans being roughly yanked down. Then she was straddling his thighs again, the feeling of her now bare skin against his more intense than it should have been. The contact sizzled through him, cutting through the horrible migraine and making his body react as if she’d touched him even more intimately.

_What the hell?_ he thought in confusion. Then coherent thought became impossible as she slid forward, her wet heat pressing against his hardening length.

 

**…**

 

Buffy walked into Giles’s new – and as yet unopened – shop in time for the regularly scheduled Scooby meeting, a small statuette clutched in her hand. She’d found it when she’d checked the ritual site a few hours after… after…. Her mind shied away from what she’d done. It hadn’t really been…. He’d never actually _said_ the word no.

“…any of our shared classes today. I’m getting really worried.”

Willow’s words to the others washed over her, barely comprehended. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. He hadn’t said no, but what he had said had been a pretty big negatory. _Oh god, please, no. I don’t wanna think about this._ She couldn’t get the image out of her head. The look of panic in his eyes as Spike had punched her.

“Buffy? Buffy, are you okay?”

Buffy blinked in confusion. Willow was standing right in front of her. When had Willow come over to her? She’d been sitting at the table with the others just a second ago.

“I….” Buffy trailed off, looking down at the statuette in her hand.

She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want them to know what she’d done. _She_ didn’t want to know what she’d done. Maybe she wouldn’t have to tell them? She’d just hand over the doohickey and have them do the research thing and break the spell. She had to still be under it. It was the only way what she’d done afterwards made any sense.

“Buffster?”

Xander was there now, standing next to Willow. Buffy actually saw Giles’s movement as he joined the others.  They were all looking at her, even Anya, who had stayed at the table with a book of crossword puzzles. Why were they looking at her? Did they know? No. No, they couldn’t know. She hadn’t told them, and there was no way Spike could have. She’d made sure of that.

Was that why she’d done all that? Maybe it wasn’t an effect of the spell, after all. She felt a small burst of hope, but then realized that it didn’t explain everything. The gag, yes, and the chains, but not the other stuff.

She was vaguely aware of her surroundings as she was led farther into the store and gently pushed down into a chair. The door opened, and a Riley shape came in making Riley-shaped noises. Then there was a Riley-shaped smell as he tried to hug her. She could tell he’d been playing basketball. He was all gross and humid and sweaty. And not the good “we just had sex all night” kind of sweaty. He reeked.

The smell brought her to her senses and she stood up before he could finish wrapping his arms around her. He gave her a hurt puppy dog look of confusion, but she didn’t have time to deal with his feelings. She was a potential danger to everyone until she figured out what was wrong with her and put a stop to it. She’d ra… done something bad to Spike, and she didn’t even like him. She didn’t want to think of what she might do to Riley.

“Giles, I need research done on this,” she said, handing him the statuette. “I need to know what kind of spells it’s used for and how to reverse them.”

“That’s a Kevary idol,” Anya suddenly offered, sounding excited. “The So’voriku use them in their fertility ritual.”

Everyone stared at the ex-vengeance demon, but she just went back to doing crossword puzzles. Buffy felt the urge to shake her and make her explain. Fertility ritual? She’d gotten caught up in some stupid fertility ritual?

“What does the ritual do?” she demanded.

Anya frowned and looked annoyed. “It’s orgasm stuff. Xander doesn’t like it when I talk about orgasms in front of everyone.”

“Ahn, honey,” Xander said, taking the puzzle book away from her. “We need to know what this thing is. It’s okay to talk about it.”

Her annoyed look transferred to her boyfriend. “Your rules are very arbitrary and confusing,” she huffed before glancing back at Buffy. “It’s a fertility ritual I found while looking for something to spice up our sex life. It seemed very promising until I got to the part about guaranteed pregnancy.”

Buffy suddenly felt like she was going to pass out. Guaranteed pregnancy? No, no, no, no. She couldn’t be pregnant. No, no, no, no. She felt blindly for the chair and dropped down into it with a thump.

“Good lord,” Giles murmured softly.

Then her watcher was suddenly kneeling beside her, gently patting her hand. Riley was standing at her other side a moment later, his hand a heavy weight on her shoulder.

“What…” Buffy began hoarsely, “what all does the ritual do? Explain the whole thing.”

“Um… well, So’voriku are sexual but genderless,” Anya explained in a matter of fact tone. “The ritual uses a sexual act to open up the essences of two beings. The dominant partner becomes sexually aggressive while the submissive one becomes attuned and sensitized to the touch of their partner.

“During the sexual act, their essences are mingled to form an embryo that’s tucked into a sort of expandable pocket dimension with a physical presence inside the submissive partner. The orgasms are supposed to be quite spectacular, which was why I was interested in it.”

“It doesn’t sound as if you’ve anything to worry about,” Giles said in obvious relief, squeezing her hand reassuringly and smiling. “The ritual seems to require two beings to be effective.”

“Spike was there,” Buffy said absently, Anya’s words crashing together in her mind. _Genderless_ , _sexually aggressive,_ and _submissive partner_ swirled together to form a disturbing realization.

Willow’s gasp of dismayed sympathy overlapped with Riley and Xander both insisting they would stake the vampire. Rage exploded through her like a wild beast at the thought of them dusting Spike. It was a familiar rage. It’s what she had felt last night when she’d slapped the lit cigarette out of Spike’s trembling hand before grabbing the entire pack and crushing it. It was what had fueled the savage beat down as she’d taken the flask from his pocket and yelled at him about disgusting poisons.

“No one is killing Spike,” she snarled, Riley’s hand knocked from her shoulder as she surged to her feet. She clenched her fists to keep herself from using them.

“Buffy, he _raped_ you,” Riley said harshly. “Hostile Seventeen is an animal, and he needs to be put down.”

“He, he didn’t do it on purpose,” Willow said, looking at Buffy with anxious compassion. “The magic made him do it. That’s what Buffy’s thinking about. Right, Buffy?”

“It doesn’t matter if there was magic, Will,” Xander snapped. “If he’d bothered to try, he could have stopped himself. But he didn’t. He’s a rapist, and he needs to pay for it. He needs to dust once and for all.”

Buffy’s rage died away as she hugged herself, Xander’s words hitting her like weighted stones and making her feel small and sick. Then he got to the part about Spike needing to dust, and the rage flared back to life.

“Don’t. You. Touch. Him,” she grated out through clenched teeth. She wanted to punch him. She felt like screaming at him and clueing him in to the time he tried to rape her while under the influence of the hyena spell.

“After the ritual, the dominant partner becomes insanely protective of the baby,” Anya said suddenly. The look she gave Buffy was both knowing and curious at the same time.

“That doesn’t explain why Buffy’s defending him,” Riley said bitterly. “What is it with you and the monsters? How could you just let him get away with doing that to you?”

A shouting match broke out at that point, Giles and Xander yelling at Riley while the ex-commando gave as good as he got. Buffy didn’t even try to follow it. She was too busy thinking of Anya’s words and the implications. Was that why she’d done what she’d done? Had she been trying to protect her baby from Spike’s nasty vices?

“Hey!” Willow yelled, the volume and anger of her normally soft voice cutting through the shouting. “You’re just upsetting Buffy. That isn’t good for her or the baby.”

“I’m not pregnant,” Buffy said quietly into the sudden silence.

“Buffy.” Giles gently took her hand again. His voice was compassionate as he spoke to her. “I know you don’t want to believe it, but if the ritual does as Anya indicated…. I’m sorry, but denial will do you no good.”

“She’s not in denial,” Anya said. “She isn’t pregnant, which you all should have realized.”

Giles frowned and looked at her. “I don’t understand. You said pregnancy was guaranteed.”

“Oh, someone got pregnant.” Buffy smiled, but it was a twisted, bitter expression. She kept her eyes locked on Xander as she continued, watching as realization hit and the blood drained from his face. “It just wasn’t me. And Spike isn’t the rapist.”


	2. Chapter 2

He kept drifting in and out of consciousness, riding along on the waves of pain radiating from his broken skull. He hated the consciousness. The monster was there. She danced and taunted him, her form a sickening mashup of the Slayer and the great grand-hag, limbs and heads sticking grotesquely out of their merged torsos. The Buffy/Darla monster swayed and twirled towards him in a sickening parody of grace, touching him, making him….

_I told you, boyo, nothing belongs to you, not even yourself._ The voice of Angelus, both comforting and hated. _Dru’s pathetic little puppy. Only wanted when the people who really matter need someone to be the butt of their jokes._

_Poor little Willy, laughed at and pushed around. You thought being a vampire would change things? I taught you better than that. You’re a victim, boy. That’s your proper place. Why do you think those soldiers got a hold of you? You aren’t meant to fight back. You’re meant to be everyone’s plaything, to be used and discarded._

Sounds, a new presence, then light stabbing at his eyes, making even more pain explode through his head. It was followed by a startled scream, something hitting him, and the flutter of soft things. Time went away for a little bit, and when it came back, there was a woman untying the strip of cloth across his mouth and pulling out the disturbingly Slayer flavored bit of fabric that had been shoved inside. She was a nice lady. Looked a bit like the Slayer’s mum.

Time flickered again. _Flicker, flicker, flash._ The monster – Angelus now a part of the horrific whole – danced, then hissed and backed away when the Joyce angel came back. Such pretty wings. She knelt beside him and began to gently wipe the blood from his face and hair. He never had been able to understand vampires who liked to be covered in blood. Yeah, it was a thrill right at first, but it went all over itchy after a spell.

_I like this hallucination_ , he decided muzzily, soft words of comfort following him down as he drifted back into the dark’s sweet embrace.

 

**…**

 

Buffy sat out in the alley behind the store, staring blankly. She’d retreated after her last bombshell to her friends, and none of them had gathered up the courage to follow her out yet. She wondered who would be first. Willow with her sincere belief that it was the magic at fault? Giles with his fatherly affection and support?

No, with her luck, it would be either Riley or Xander. Oh, god, Riley. He’d been close to blaming her when he thought she’d been the victim. He probably thought she was the biggest ho in Hotown now that he knew the truth. Then there was Xander….

His words circled through her thoughts. She knew he’d regretted them the instant he realized they’d all been wrong in their assumptions, but that didn’t make them any less true. She should have stopped herself. She was the Slayer. She should have been strong enough to fight the magic, but she hadn’t even tried. Instead, she’d been all want pretty vampire, take pretty vampire.

_And then I bashed him in the head a bunch of times before chaining him up in my basement._ She was pretty sure she’d actually fractured his skull in at least one place. And here she was, sitting around feeling sorry for herself. She needed to get him some blood and check on him. And tell him what the ritual they’d gotten caught up in had been all about.

_Oh, god, how am I supposed to tell him? They so did not cover this in sex-ed. “Hi, Spike, you know how I sort of forcefully introduced our genitals to each other and then got really, really violently anti-smoking? Well, you see that second part is because I sorta put a bun in your oven. And I’m super protective of it. But kind of stupidly so, since I apparently think giving an unborn baby’s mother… er, father, whatever… severe brain injury is somehow safer than the effects of tobacco.”_

She stood up and was about to head to the butcher’s shop when someone finally came out to talk to her. It was Riley, and he didn’t look like he was there to apologize or offer any kind of comfort.

He silently glared at her for a moment before slowly shaking his head, his anger morphing to bewilderment. “I just don’t get you sometimes, Buffy. What is it that you _want_?”

Buffy blinked, feeling as bewildered and angry as Riley looked. “What do I want? What do you mean, what do I want? I want last night to have never happened, but I can’t have that. I _want_ a supportive boyfriend, but apparently I can’t have that either.”

Riley softened suddenly and came to put his arms around her. “I’m sorry, Buffy.” She let herself lean against him. “You really wish last night hadn’t happened?”

Buffy jerked away from him, staring at him in hurt incredulity. “I got mojo’ed into raping a vampire that I loathe. How the hell could you think I’d _want_ that to have happened?”

What was wrong with him? First he said that he understood and loved both parts of her, then he went all annoyingly macho, and now he was acting like she’d gone off and drunkenly cheated on him or something.

“Buffy, don’t beat yourself up over this. You didn’t rape anyone.” There was a tinge of exasperation in his voice. “You’re a beautiful woman, you can’t rape a man. Trust me, unless he’s secretly gay, he wanted it.”

“You know, Riley, maybe you should stick to talking about things you actually know something about.”

The two of them had been so wrapped up in their little drama that Xander’s harsh words were their first clue that he had joined them in the alley. He was hunched forward slightly, hands in his pockets, and wouldn’t look directly at either of them. Great, now Xander was acting all wonky. She just needed Giles to come dancing out in drag, and all of the men currently in her life would have something weird going on with them.

“Okay, you know what, I’m so done with this,” Buffy said, holding her hand up in a stopping motion. “I need to get home before Dawn does so I can talk to Spike without her there. You guys stay here and just, just research the long term effects of this thing.”

She strode out of the alley, hearing only one of them following behind her. She glanced out of the corner of her eye to see Xander, still looking like there was something bothering him. She was pretty sure she knew what it was.

“Look, Buffy,” he started once they were out on the main street. She opened her mouth to cut off his apology, but he continued on. “I’m not here to argue with you or start something. I don’t like the evil undead, but I can sort of understand what’s going on with him.”

Buffy’s steps faltered, and she turned to look at him. That had not been what she’d expected to come out of his mouth.

“You remember back when Faith killed that guy, and I went to talk to her?” he asked, glancing at her and then quickly away after seeing her nod of confirmation. “Angel probably told you about her trying to strangle me… but… uh… before that….” He stopped to take a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. “Before that, she tried to force herself on me. She’s gorgeous, and what she was doing felt really, really great, but I…. She was stronger than me, and I couldn’t….”

“You couldn’t stop her,” she whispered, feeling sick. “Why… why didn’t you tell any of us about this?”

“Because of that attitude,” he said, gesturing back towards the alley. “It’s not rape if a beautiful woman does it, right?” There was a bitterness to his tone that Buffy had rarely heard from him. “If she had kept going instead of trying to kill me… well, just means I’m a slutty manwhore, doesn’t it?”

There was a moment of awkward silence as Buffy tried to figure out what to say. Should… should she hug him? What this a hugging situation? She’d hug Willow, but that relationship had a slightly different dynamic.

Xander took another deep breath. “And while we’re airing out all of the dirty laundry-”

“Laundry? Oh, crap, it’s laundry day!” Buffy interrupted in dismay. If her mom got to the basement before she could get home and found Spike…. She frantically dug into her pocket and thrust a wad of bills at Xander. “I need to get home right away. Meet me there with as much blood as you can buy with this.”

“Buffy, what….”

She took off, running for home as fast as she could.

 

**…**

 

“Some kinda spell. Had to been,” Spike mumbled, his words slurring a bit. The chains leading from one manacle to the other jangled as his unsteady hands lifted the mug of cocoa up for a drink. “She went all violent…. Well, _more_ violent. Likes to talk with her fists, your girl does.”

“I think that’s mostly just with you,” Joyce said gently, both relieved and dismayed.

She didn’t like that her daughter was under the influence of a spell, but it explained her behavior. Buffy slayed vampires, she didn’t leave them a battered mess held prisoner for her mother to find.

Joyce had come down to the basement to do laundry only to find the confused, blood-covered, and very concussed vampire bound and gagged in the corner, the wrist restraints and a collar attached to the wall by several bent metal rods that had been driven into it like giant staples. After screaming and throwing the laundry at him in surprise, she’d removed the gag and cleaned the blood from his face and hair. It was an uneven mix of russet and pink at the moment instead of stained red from multiple head wounds.

He was speaking a bit better now, but his pupils were two different sizes and he kept having episodes where he’d stare off into space. In the hour since she’d found him, this was the most coherence she’d been able to get.

“’Spect you’re right,” he said with a slight smile.

Then he spaced out again, and Joyce was just barely able to catch his cocoa before he dropped it. She frowned as her hand brushed his. She knew vampires didn’t produce body heat, but he felt like an ice cube instead of the ambient temperature. She carefully set the mug down on the floor before standing up and rummaging through a box. She pulled out an electric blanket, then plugged it in and draped it over Spike's shoulders.

A few minutes passed in silence before the vampire focused on her again. He looked lost and bewildered as he pulled the blanket tighter around himself. “Not supposed to feel cold,” he murmured, more to himself than to her. “Sodding spell. Made Slayer all barmy, but haven’t a bloody clue what it’s done to me.”

“I… uh, I can answer that.” Buffy’s voice heralded her return from the top of the stairs.

 

**…**

 

Fourteen minutes later, Buffy sat on the couch between Xander and her mother – the older woman’s arms wrapped comfortingly around her – and waited for some kind of reaction from Spike. The vampire was unchained and sitting calmly in a chair across from her, fiddling with an empty mug.

It had been filled with pig blood three times already, which seemed to be helping with the concussion, though not as fast as she thought it should be. His attention had sort of… wandered a bit while she’d been trying to explain, but she was pretty sure he’d gotten the gist of it.

As she’d spoken, the situation had started to finally hit her fully. She was going to be a parent. _I can’t be a mom,_ she thought in rising panic. _I’m supposed to be the Slayer, and a girlfriend, and a college student, and a daughter, and a friend, and a big sister. How am I supposed to fit being a parent into all of that? There isn’t enough Buffy left to stretch that far!_

Her mom hugged her tighter, whispering into her hair that everything would be okay. Buffy felt herself relax a fraction. She wasn’t in this alone. Her mom had been horrified when she’d heard what happened, but she wasn’t blaming her for any of it. She was supporting her and would help her take care of the baby. The thought that Spike might be willing to help was so preposterous that it didn’t even occur to her.

“Huh,” Spike finally said, cutting into her thoughts. He set the mug on the floor before slowly and unsteadily getting to his feet. “Right, well, I’m off then.”

“You’re taking this awfully well,” Xander commented just as Buffy surged to her feet in alarm.

“What? Where are you going?” she demanded. “You can’t go anywhere! You can barely walk, and it’s daylight out.”

“This is the Hellmouth, these things happen,” Spike pointed out philosophically to Xander. Then he blinked and squinted at Buffy. “Right… daylight. Not a problem. Just borrow a blanket and pop down into the sewers. Head to Willie’s for a three week bender. That should drown the Slayer spawn right and proper. If that doesn’t do the trick, can always just shish kebob the little blighter.”

He headed for the door – his gait wavering and uneven – and panic flared through Buffy. He was going to try to kill the baby. Hell, he was going to kill himself, too. The idiot hadn’t grabbed anything to protect himself from the sun. She lunged towards him and seized his wrist, barely aware of the snap of bone and his startled yelp of pain as she turned and pretty much flung him into her vacated seat on the couch.

“Did you somehow miss the part where I’m insanely protective of my baby?” she yelled harshly as she glared down at him.

Spike listed to the side at that point until he was practically lying in Xander’s lap, clutching his left wrist. “Oh god, th’ rum won’t sop spinnening,” he mumbled as the human man awkwardly patted him on the shoulder.

“Buffy Anne Summers.” Buffy’s eyes widened as she was thrice-named in the dreaded Mom Voice. “We do not assault concussed pregnant people in this house. Do I make myself clear?”

“But, but, he was going to go out in the _sun_! I saved his life,” Buffy protested, trying not to squirm. Okay, so, she probably could have been a little gentler about it, but it was _Spike_. She was used to being rough with him. And she hadn’t _meant_ to break his wrist or jostle his brain around some more. It had just kind of happened.

“Do. I. Make. Myself. Clear?”

The Mom Stare and Parental Enunciation Technique stayed directed at her until she grumbled out a, “yes, Mom,” and was then transferred to Spike.

“As for you,” her glare and voice softened a little bit, but were still stern, “you aren’t in any shape to be going anywhere or making _any_ kind of decisions right now. Understood?”

Instead of answering, Spike just sort of oozed off of the couch and onto the floor. “’S nicer down here. No’ as spinny.”

Buffy looked down at him and sighed. For whatever reason, the blood Xander had brought wasn’t helping as much as it should have, and she’d apparently just made things worse. There was only one thing she knew of that might give his vampire healing a much needed boost. She didn’t like the idea, but if she wanted a healthy baby, she was going to need a healthy Spike.

Twenty-three minutes and two ounces of Slayer blood later, the vampire was showered, tied up securely to a chair, and more or less lucid. He was also seriously pissed off and scowling at a group that now included Willow. While Buffy was glad for her friend’s support, she wasn’t sure adding an extra person to the mix had been such a good idea, especially since Spike’s murderous glare seemed centered on the redhead for some reason.

 

“You lot are all sexist pigs,” he spat. Then his eyes flickered to Buffy’s mom. “’Cept for you.” The glare returned. “The rest of you, though…. If I were a woman, Red’d already be workin’ a spell to hold the Slayer down while the boy cut me loose.”

 

Willow shifted uneasily on her perch on the arm of the couch, and wouldn’t look at anyone. “He… uh… kind of has a point, Buffy.” She finally looked at Spike. “And I’m, I’m not sexist. I’m actually kind of disturbed by the whole tying you up so you can’t make your own… uh… reproductive choices.”

 

In the abstract, Buffy agreed with Willow. Forcing someone to have a magic rape baby against their will was majorly of the ooky. But in this specific case… it was _her_ baby, and she couldn’t let him hurt it.

 

“Oh, right, you feel oh so disturbed,” Spike said mockingly. “And yet, there you bloody sit, not doing a sodding thing.”

Buffy sighed and ran her hand over her face. “Damn it, Spike, why do you always have to make things more difficult than they have to be?”

“I’m not the one making things difficult. _I_ had two perfectly good solutions to this mess, which you violently shot down.” He cocked his head in thought. “Granted, I shouldn’t have actually _told_ you those ideas, but getting clonked in the head multiple times apparently plays merry hell with my inner filter.”

His gaze sharpened suddenly on Buffy. “Look, say I go along with all this, what exactly is in it for me, hmm? I get to stick around and actually be a part of the sprog’s life?”

“Oh, hell, no,” she answered without even having to think about it. There was a flash of something like resigned hurt in his eyes, there and gone before she was really sure she’d seen it. She told herself she’d just been imagining things.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. So, again, what’s in it for me? This may come as a bit of a shock to you, Slayer, but being your bleedin’ broodmare isn’t exactly on my list of unlife goals.”

Before Buffy could even think of a response, Dawn came home.

“I’m home!” the teenager called out, dumping her backpack near the door as she turned into the living room. She blinked as she looked around the room, a small frown forming. “What’s going on? Why is Spike tied up? If you guys are staging an intervention, I have to say, I think the all black is a classic, timeless look, and it really suits him. Plus, you know, he does sometimes wear that red button-down shirt.”

“Big sis got mojo’ed into sexing me up and now she’s forcing me to carry her mystical spawn against my will,” Spike explained with a glare at Buffy.

“Spike,” her mom said admonishingly, “do you really think that was the best way to break things to Dawn?”

The vampire just shrugged. “Sorry, Joyce. That _was_ the less potentially traumatizing version, though, and if the Slayer has her way, not going to be able to keep it all secret from the little bit.”

Several emotions flickered across Dawn’s face as Buffy watched, finally settling on excited. “I’m going to be an auntie?”

“And that’s what you go with as your first question?” Xander asked. “Not ‘how is that even possible?’ or anything like that?”

Dawn shrugged and sat on the floor next to the chair Spike was tied to. “This is the Hellmouth, these things happen,” she said, unknowingly repeating Spike’s earlier words.

“That they do, pigeon, that they do.” Spike eyed the girl speculatively. “Fifty bucks in it for you if you untie me.”

“Sorry, dude, not going against Buffy. She pinches.”

“She does tend to resort to violence, doesn’t she?” The sly smirk he shot Buffy’s way made her uneasy. “Oi, Slayer, you have stupid hair, your outfit is _so_ last season, and you have terrible taste in boyfriends.”

It was a Pavlovian response. An insult came out of Spike’s mouth, and she punched him in the nose. She was off the couch and doing just that before she even had time to think. Dawn squeaked in alarm and scooted away as Spike’s chair fell over from the force of Buffy’s blow.

“Sod all, was hoping for a more violent, possibly sprog damaging reaction,” Spike muttered at the same time that Buffy’s mother sharply called out her name and rushed over to her.

“He started it,” she said in her own defense, knowing she sounded like a five-year-old even as she said it.

“Pick the chair up, then go back to the couch and sit on your hands,” Mom ordered.

“But-“

“Now.”

Buffy grumbled and righted the chair before going back to the couch and sitting next to Xander, hands under her butt.

Her mom sighed and rubbed at her temples before addressing Spike. “Please stop provoking her. I know this whole thing must be very upsetting and confusing for you, but,” she paused and frowned slightly as she patted his hand, “you look tired and you feel cold again. Maybe you should wait a bit before making any permanent decisions?”

“Fine,” he muttered. “Probably could do with some decent kip.” He glared at Buffy. “I was too busy being unconscious most of the day to get any real sleep.”

“I think we have a cot I can set up downstairs,” Buffy offered grudgingly.

“Oh, no, Spike is absolutely _not_ staying in our basement.”

“But I can’t just let him go back to his crypt,” Buffy protested, confused by her mother’s sudden objection. _Maybe she’s worried I’ll hurt him again if he’s in the house._ “It isn’t safe.”

“Oh, I never said he’d be going to his crypt, just that he wouldn’t be staying in our basement.”

“Then where is he going to be staying?” Buffy asked.

Her mom’s answering smile made her extremely uneasy.

 

**…**

 

Spike watched from the Slayer’s bed as the young woman fumed and stomped around, setting up a soft mattress topper and sleeping bag on the floor for later. He had to admit, if he wasn’t involved in all of this, he would have found it funny. The Slayer having to sleep on the floor of her own room because her mum insisted both that she stay here instead of at the dorm for now and that he get the bed.

The situation that had led to this plus the fact that he was chained by his right wrist to the now magically reinforced bed detracted quite a bit from the hilarity. As did the fact that he was wearing a pair of too-large sweatpants left by the soldier boy as a compromise between sleeping naked or in jeans. They had supposedly been washed, but he could still smell traces of the man’s stench. He wondered idly when they were going to figure out that there was something off with the giant hall monitor.

Buffy glared at him suddenly. “I bet you’re just loving this, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, because being chained to your bed is the bloody highlight of my entire existence,” he said dryly.

She sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. “Look-” she cut off abruptly, her eyes taking on a deer in the headlights look as he jerked as far from her as the chain would allow.

_Stupid wanker,_ he cursed himself in disgust. He could admit to himself that he wasn’t exactly comfortable being half naked on a bed with the bint after last night, but that didn’t make broadcasting that fact to her a good idea. _Might as well wear a bloody sign sayin’ “weak an’ helpless against humans, please do as you’d like.”_

“Sorry, pet, but you don’t exactly have a good track record for resisting my hot little body,” he said with what he knew was his most infuriating smirk. Keep her angry and off-balance enough, and maybe she wouldn’t realize how vulnerable he felt at the moment. Her expression hardened and her fists clenched. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, Slayer, gonna hit me again? You heard your mum, one little peep from me, and _you_ get to sleep in the basement.”

She stiffly got to her feet and left the room without another word or a backwards glance. _Brilliant,_ he thought with an eye roll. He hadn’t actually meant to make her leave. Without her there as a distraction, he was tired, cold, and… well, upset and confused really didn’t cover it. He sighed and shifted to the center of the bed, curling up under the electric blanket Joyce had brought up for him.

Bitterness and rage seemed to seep into him along with the heat. Wasn’t this always the way? The universe seemed to take an unholy glee in giving him a taste of what he wanted before cruelly snatching it away. He actually _liked_ kids, and not just as a snack. They had a sense of glee and whimsy that was sadly lacking in most adults. They didn’t bottle up their imaginations.

Dru had been like that. In fact, her almost childlike quality while still being obviously a woman was one of the things that had always captivated him. God, he missed her. She’d fulfilled both the need to belong to someone and to have someone to take care of. Being with her had eased most of the regret over one of the few dreams becoming a vampire had crushed. Children.

As a human, he’d dreamed of having them. Five chubby little daughters who would listen raptly as he spun fanciful tales and would never, ever mock or belittle him for his daydreams and terrible poetry. Any hope of that had died when he had, only to be resurrected and killed again when he’d been told about the effects of the ritual. Even with his thoughts all muzzy, he’d known he’d never be allowed to be part of the child’s life and that the only way to save himself the heartache was to get rid of it before he got attached.

She already planned to have him disinvited once the sprog was out and about. She’d talked to Red about it right in front of him while the witch had been casting her spell on the bed to keep him from being able to escape. He knew himself, though. He’d lurk around the periphery of their lives, trying to catch a glimpse of his child. Buffy would threaten him and try to make him leave. Eventually she’d end up staking him.

_‘Course, it’s all a moot point, isn’t it?_ he realized suddenly. The blood from the butcher shop had scarcely had an effect on his healing, and he thought he knew why. Animal blood barely had enough of whatever it was in blood that vampires needed to survive. Dead pig wouldn’t keep the sprog alive, and Buffy would never believe him if he told her he needed human. She – _it_ , he told himself fiercely, even though the feminine pronoun felt strangely right – would die, and he’d be free.

_Sorry, sprog. You’d have had far to go if you’d had a chance to start. Could have lived life to the fullest. That’s fate for you, though. Nothin’s ever meant to be mine._

He drifted off into a troubled sleep, plagued by dreams of the final form of the monster from his hallucinations, one of its six hands dragging a dead baby on a leash.

 

**…**

 

_Bingo!_ Willow thought excitedly as she found a website dedicated to the So’voriku fertility ritual. It had a really nice layout, complete with links to information about the effects on different species and even cross species issues. She clicked on the link for vampires, her face falling as the page loaded.

“Oh, oh, this doesn’t look good.”

“What is it, sweetie? What did you find?” Tara asked, coming up behind her and gently rubbing her shoulders.

“This says it’s not really a good idea for the submissive partner to be a vampire. If the baby doesn’t get what it needs to thrive, it’ll drain the demonic energy that animates Spike until he just sort of collapses into dust.” She didn’t like the idea of forcing someone to have a child, but letting Spike die just to prevent that seemed even worse. She brightened suddenly. “Oh, but it looks like we can counteract all of this. The problem with vampires is the need for body heat – the baby sort of absorbs it – and vampires don’t produce it. There’s also some stuff involved with cross species pairings. We just need to keep him warm and make sure he gets plenty of the nutrients needed by both humans and vampires.”

“I think, working together, we could enchant a small stone to radiate heat,” Tara suggested with a shy smile.

Willow’s answering smile was warm as she looked up at her girlfriend. Tara really was wonderful. She bookmarked the page and stood up. “Let’s make some magic together, baby.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have chosen to believe that Spike’s comments in “Out of My Mind” about knitting sweaters and having knitting needles Riley can borrow are because he actually can knit sweaters and does have some knitting needles back at his crypt. Some dialogue and scenes taken from the episode “Out of My Mind”.

The sun was starting to set. _I should go out and patrol,_ Buffy thought numbly as she sat alone on the couch. She was confused for a moment, wondering why she hadn’t patrolled at all since… since things happened, but then realized it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours. God, it felt like so much longer. She’d been numb and angry and guilty and…and she’d even retreated to a sort of childish mentality earlier when she’d been dealing with Spike.

_Spike…._ She felt nauseous just thinking about him. The things she’d done – was _still_ doing – to him. She didn’t want to think – wanted to just keep her brain turned off – but she needed to figure this all out. She couldn’t just keep a vampire prisoner in her room, chained to the bed since even her mother felt he was safer that way. All because a stupid ritual had turned her into a raging crazy person who would hurt him if he was free.

Buffy held her head in her hands. She didn’t know what to do. Why _hadn’t_ Willow just immobilized her and set Spike loose? Was it sexism like he had said? Willow had protested, but she’d seemed more upset about the whole fighting the vengeful Chumash spirit thing, and Hus had been trying to kill innocent people.

She wondered suddenly if her witchy friend would have acted the same if it had been Riley instead of Spike. She had the uncomfortable feeling that Willow would have. Reproductive rights were also called women’s rights, and Buffy was the woman in the equation. It was like her friend thought the fact that Spike had boy parts somehow made it… well, not okay, but nowhere near as bad as it would have been if he’d been female. That realization gave her a squirmy, icky feeling.

She couldn’t deal with this right now. She couldn’t think about this. She needed to go out and hit things. Things that could fight back. She needed to patrol. Except that would mean going upstairs to the backup stash of weapons in her closet. The closet that was in her room. Which had her bed in it. The bed where the vampire she had assaulted multiple times that day was sleeping.

She drew in an unsteady breath and forced herself to her feet, slipping up the stairs without disturbing her mother or Dawn as they worked on getting something put together for dinner. All too soon, she was standing in front of the door to her bedroom, staring at the knob as if it might try to bite her. For a brief moment, she couldn’t remember how it worked, her confused and traumatized mind rejecting the request for that simple knowledge. She blinked and slowly wrapped her hand around it, turning and pushing to open the door.

She left it ajar to let the light in as she headed towards the closet – _I need to move the weapons to the basement,_ she thought. _Then I can at least get a longer chain so Spike can move around the entire room._ – keeping her eyes away from the bed until a small sound drew her attention. Spike was curled up tightly in the center, twitching and whimpering in his sleep. The electric blanket had been kicked nearly off the bed.

She slowly drifted closer and gazed down at him, tentatively reaching out a hand to touch his arm, unsure if she should try to wake him from whatever unpleasant dream he seemed to be having. His skin was disturbingly cold against the warmth of her fingertips. What was up with that? Did it have something to do with the ritual, or was it some kind of reaction to shock?

He looked younger in his sleep. Younger and vulnerable. She swallowed convulsively, the nausea she’d been feeling off and on all day increasing in response to the images suddenly playing through her mind. Spike underneath her, dazed from chip-induced pain and unable to fight her off as her body….

She grabbed the blanket and covered him with it before bolting out to the bathroom. She barely made it to the toilet before throwing up, nothing in her but thin, acidic bile. Had she even eaten at all that day? There was a sound from the doorway, and her mother was suddenly there, kneeling beside her and holding her close.

“It’s okay, sweetie, it’s all going to be okay,” Mom said soothingly. Buffy let herself melt into the maternal embrace. “Willow just called. She has some information about the ritual. She hasn’t been able to find anything to stop the way it’s affecting you, but she did figure out how to counteract some dangers to Spike.”

“Dangers?” she pulled away a bit, eyes wide with alarm as she stared at her mother. There were dangers to Spike? That meant a danger to her child. She felt the protective impulses firing through her. She needed to do something. Could she hit something to fix this? She needed to hit something.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” her mom repeated. “Willow said everything would be fine for tonight. She’ll have information and things for you tomorrow. For now, come on downstairs. Dawn and I made tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.”

 

**…**

 

While her daughters ate, Joyce cut a sandwich into four triangles and added warmed blood and a few drops of tabasco sauce to a bowl of soup. Bowl and plate both went on a tray, along with a glass of orange juice. She was pretty sure vampires didn’t need vitamin C to help absorb the iron in blood, but she figured it couldn’t hurt.

Buffy looked up at her with a small frown as she picked up the tray and headed for the stairs. “Um, Mom? Vampires don’t actually need people food,” she pointed out.

“Actually, according to Willow, he does need human food right now,” Joyce replied, putting a very slight emphasis on the word human. She knew Buffy couldn’t think of vampires as people and still do her job, but she had a feeling things would go very badly if her daughter didn’t change her views on this particular vampire when it came to personhood. “Also, he likes it, so I’d be taking some even if that wasn’t the case.”

“I’ll help with the door,” Dawn announced, popping up out of her seat and bounding up the stairs.

Joyce shook her head in amusement at her youthful energy and followed at a more sedate pace. Dawn waited only long enough for her to get to the top of the stairs before giving a perfunctory knock and flinging the door open.

“You’re awake,” the teenager announced happily as she flipped the light on.

“’Course I am. Bloody impossible to sleep through you galumphing up the steps like an entire herd of elephants, innit?”

He sounded more amused than annoyed, which she thought was a good sign. He really was taking the situation fairly well, though it was entirely possible that was only because it hadn’t fully sunk in just yet.

Joyce remembered the excitement, fear, and uncertainty when she’d found out she was pregnant with Buffy. It had been an overwhelming experience, and she had been a married human woman actively trying for a child. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like for a male vampire who had been the victim of a magic-influenced assault.

She walked into the room to see Dawn and Spike sitting side-by-side on the bed, the teenager staring at him with barely concealed adoration. _What is it with my daughters and getting crushes on vampires?_ she wondered. At least this one wasn’t also an emotional predator who liked to target underage girls. No, this one didn’t show up, spew cryptic advice, and make himself seem like a mysterious hero before leaving her baby to fight on her own.

This one just showed up at her gallery from time to time, absently touching all of the displays until she found something else for him to do with his hands. Then he’d ramble for hours about plays and films he’d taken his ex to see. It was actually a fairly entertaining way to spend the time on slow evenings.

“Thank you for your help, Dawn,” she said as she set the tray on the nightstand while Spike watched in slightly confused surprise. “Go on down and finish your dinner.”

“Oh, I can-“

“You can go downstairs and eat your dinner,” she said sternly before Dawn could finish speaking.

“Prob’ly not good for big sis to be on her own right now,” Spike pointed out quietly.

Dawn sighed in exasperation, but got up and flounced out of the room. Joyce took her vacated spot on the bed, watching silently as the vampire picked up a triangle of grilled cheese sandwich and dunked it into the mixture of blood and tomato soup.

“‘Preciate the grub, Joyce.”

“You’re welcome,” she said with a small smile. He had enough to deal with for one night, so she only told him the secondary reason for the tray of food. “You’re a… well, not a guest, exactly, but close enough, and I intend to treat you like one as much as possible.” She glanced down at the bedding on the floor, her smile falling into a frown. “Are you sure you’re alright with Buffy sleeping up here? It wasn’t her fault, but….”

Spike just shrugged as she trailed off uncomfortably and finished a mouthful of sandwich before responding. “Even without all the magic, Slayer’s knickers’d be in a twist over me bein’ in her room all unsupervised. Best all-around if she don’t have to sneak about in her own house to see what’s what. As for fault….” He shrugged again. “What happened was mutually nonconsensual, s’far as I’m concerned.”

Joyce felt something within her relax a bit at his words. “I’m glad you see it that way.” Buffy didn’t – _yet_ – but she planned to work on that.

“Knew she had to be under the influence of _something_. I know I’m irresistibly sexy and romance is sadly lacking in young people these days, but I’d like to think the Slayer would at least buy me a few drinks first if she was in her right mind.”  He flashed her a charming, roguish grin and dunked another triangle. “This is really good.”

Joyce studied him thoughtfully. He still looked a little tired, but other than that – and being chained half-naked to a bed – he seemed fine. “You’re taking this remarkably well.”

“It’s not exactly a new experience, now is it?” He tilted his head, considering his own words and apparently oblivious to her growing look of horror as his meaning sunk in. “Well, ‘cept for the being preggers bit. That _is_ new, and I haven’t quite wrapped my head around it just yet. Sort of an abstract concept at the mo’.”

Part of her wanted to ask for clarification, but she firmly squashed the impulse. Whatever he’d been through before this unfortunate situation was Spike’s business and not hers.

He shook his head in sudden, wry amusement. “If anyone could get a male vampire knocked up, makes sense that it’d be your girl. Slayer’s stones are big enough I wouldn’t be surprised if her boytoy ended up in the family way even without a sodding ritual.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment on Buffy’s behalf,” Joyce said dryly. Spike grinned at her. “If you two could work together in this and not antagonize-”

“Sorry, love, I can’t promise to make nice with the Slayer,” he interrupted.

“What? Why not?” she asked in exasperation. He’d been so reasonable up until now. “You said you didn’t blame her, but you won’t-”

“It’s not about blame,” he said, refusing to meet her eyes for a moment before sighing and looking right at her. “And I said _can’t_ not won’t. Everyone has coping mechanisms, yeah? Mine are drinking, violence, and being as much of a pain in the arse as I can be. Can’t do the first two, so that last bit is all I have. I won’t try to make her feel bad about what happened, but other than that….” He shook his head. “I’m not censoring my words. ‘Nless she gags me again, they’re one of the few things I actually have any control of right now.”

She hesitantly reached out and patted his shoulder. “Buffy and her friends have saved the world several times. They’ll figure this out and get Buffy acting like herself again. Then what happens next will be up to you.”

Buffy hadn’t seemed to take it seriously when Spike had essentially offered to cooperate in exchange for getting to spend time with his own child. Joyce was pretty sure he had meant it. She had done a fairly good job – and still was – of taking care of her daughters by herself, but she thought it best for a child to have both parents as an equal part of its life. She’d do her best to ensure her grandchild got that.

 

**…**

 

Buffy wandered through the cemetery, muttering under her breath about uncooperative vampires. Why were they never around to stake when she needed them to be? When she wanted to go on a date or do something fun with her friends, there were monsters and apocalypses – apocali? – galore. But when she needed the distraction and satisfaction of a good slay? Everyone was in washing their demonic socks or something.

She felt the faint tingle of a fledgling off to her left and immediately turned that way, heading towards it. She watched as two big, beefy hands rose up from a fresh grave. Instead of hovering right over it, she waited, giving him time to come out. She wanted a fight, not just a kill.

Finally, he burst free, shaking the dirt away from himself before launching himself at her with a bestial roar. Sometimes they came out like this, more animal than thinking creature. She wasn’t exactly sure why that was, but in this instance, she wasn’t going to look a feral gift-vamp in the mouth.

She punched and kicked, toying with him. She let him get in a few good hits, needing the punishment. She had failed. She was the Slayer. She was supposed to be strong, to prevail in the face of all odds. She wasn’t supposed to be controlled by spells.

She let the vampire hit her, but she also wailed on him, working out her confusion, guilt, and fear with every impact of her fists on dead flesh. Finally, though, she was ready to stake him. Just as she lunged forward, her weapon held out, someone tackled her prey to the ground.

Riley looked up at her, a pleased expression on his face as the vampire dusted. Buffy fought against the urge to scream at him for stealing her kill. What the hell was this? Why was he out here all by himself?

“Buffy, what are doing here?” he asked with a smile before she had the chance to ask the same of him.

“Uh… my job?” She tapped herself lightly in the chest with her stake. What was he thinking? That she needed an injured or dead boyfriend on top of everything else that had gone wrong? “Me Slayer. Vampires slayees. It’s sorta what I do.”

Riley’s smile faltered. “Well, yeah, I know, but I thought you could use a break tonight. I’m trying to be supportive. I know I was kind of – well, okay, a lot of – an ass earlier. I’ve seen a lot of weird things, but all this magic stuff…. I reacted badly, and I’m sorry.”

He held out his arms, and Buffy hesitated only a moment before going to him and accepting the hug. He squeezed her tight, not too much for her to handle, but a lot harder than would have been comfortable for a normal woman. She felt bad for wondering if it was because he really did accept her as both the Slayer and Buffy or if it was him trying to show off his strength.

“You’re my girl, and I want you to know that even if I get stupid sometimes, I’m always here for you. I’ll do whatever I can to protect you.”

She stiffened at that, then literally bit her tongue to keep from saying anything and forced herself to relax. She didn’t need protecting. She just needed a loving, supportive boyfriend. He was trying, she had to give him that. He’d apologized, and despite what had happened, things were working. They were working, and for right now, that was good enough for her.

 

**…**

 

“…you’re totally missing my point,” Buffy said animatedly as she and Willow walked towards Giles’s shop from the campus. “Now, I agree that Marat wasn’t a real martyr, but the death in the tub ... the neck wound, all that blood, just a little more fang-y than knife-y. I mean, Charlotte Corday wasn't a real martyr either, but...”

“Buffy!” Willow called out in excitement as she stopped walking and grabbed Buffy’s hand

“What?”

Willow flashed her a huge grin. “Listen to us! We-we're arguing! We're having a debate about a college lecture! I have dreamt of this day since ... forever! You are turning into quite the student. Should I be watching my occipital lobe?”

“Your what?” Buffy asked. That sounded familiar. Why couldn’t she place it? “I know I know what that is. I just can’t focus,” she grumbled.

Willow’s smile wobbled and fell away as they both thought about why Buffy might be having trouble focusing.

They resumed walking, silence holding sway for a few moments before the redhead spoke. “How are you holding up? With, with everything and all?”

Buffy sighed and looked at her friend with a wan smile. “Things are weird, but I’m dealing. It kind of helps that Spike has been unconscious or asleep for most of this so far.” She frowned suddenly. “In fact, he was asleep when I got in from patrol and when I woke up to get ready for classes this morning. Is that normal?”

Fresh guilt bubbled up inside her. She’d been so grateful that she wouldn’t have to talk to him that she’d sort of forgotten Spike was nocturnal. He should have been awake when she got home. It hadn’t even occurred to her that something might be wrong.

“I think so,” Willow said with her own frown as she considered the things she’d found online the night before. “The first week is a kinda big energy drain, and he… uh…had a lot of healing to do on top of that,” she pointed out diplomatically.

Buffy winced at the reminder of the beat-down from the night before last. Her steps faltered as she became truly aware of the differences in her reactions. When she hadn’t known what was going on, she’d nearly bashed his brain right out of his skull just for smoking. When he’d been about to crispy critter himself by going out in the sun, she’d only broken his wrist, and that really had been an accident. Maybe that meant she could control it now that she knew what was going on. Maybe she’d be able to unchai-

Sudden images of church organs popped into her head along with the thought that, if she hit him just right in the lower back, she wouldn’t need restraints to keep him from escaping and harming her child. _Okay, yeah, chains it is. Yippee for chains,_ she thought, fighting back nausea.

She could get Willow to reinforce a longer set along with the banister. If she got the length right, he could wander around the house without being able to get to the kitchen knives or her weapons. She wondered if there was a way to do a sort of reverse disinvite to keep Spike from going outside. She didn’t think he was suicidal – she was pretty sure the whole walking into the sun routine had only been because he’d been thinkingly challenged at that moment – but she wouldn’t have thought he was last year when he had almost managed it in Xander’s basement either.

“…and I think I might be a weremoose.”

Buffy blinked and stared at her friend in confusion. “What? Weremoose? There are weremooses now?” she practically wailed. Please, God, no, she couldn’t deal with anymore weirdness.

Willow winced and patted her shoulder. “Sorry. No, Buffy, no weremoose, I promise. You just, uh, didn’t seem to be paying attention.”

"...Oh. Sorry, Will, I just...."

“Have a lot on your mind. I know,” the redhead said with a sympathetic smile. “As I was saying, Spike is gonna need people food, a lot of blood, and warmth or he’ll go all dusty within the first week. This little baby will help with the keeping warm part.” She held out a small, glowing orange stone on a leather cord. “When the glow starts fading, it’ll be time for a recharge.”

Buffy practically snatched it from her and clutched it tightly. “This’ll help keep Spike from going poof and taking my baby with him?”

“Yeah. Just have him wear that and keep an eye on him. If the baby starts draining his life force, he’ll get weak and a little disoriented at first, eventually followed by shaking of the extremities, dizziness, and then convulsions. Not long after that, dustiness. Making with the bumpies will make things worse since it brings the demon aspect closer to the surface, so he needs to stay all human-y as much as possible.”

Buffy nodded jerkily and turned away from her friend. She needed to get home and take care of Spike. Her mom had said she’d give him some blood during her lunch break, but would it be enough? How much blood in a day did a vampire actually need? They’d never really bothered to find out, not even when they’d held him prisoner in Giles’s bathtub. Of course, the whole point of that had been to keep him in starvation mode so he’d be more likely to spill everything he knew about the Initiative.

“Buffy, wait,” Willow said, grabbing her shoulder. “Spike will be fine on his own for a few more hours. You need to come with me to Giles’s shop.”

She looked a question at the witch, but she only smiled secretively in response.

 

**…**

 

There was a spring in Xander’s step as he headed towards his apartment. Sure, things were hectic and sort of nightmarish at the moment, but it had been a good day so far. Buffy had been ecstatic over the training room. Riley had been a little weird about things, shoving playfully at Buffy before insisting on a sparring match that the Slayer had won even while obviously holding back. That hadn’t dimmed any of the pleasure she’d gotten from their surprise.

A happy Buffy made for a happy Xander, especially since he’d been able to talk her into giving him the little doodad Willow and Tara had made for Spike. She would spend the rest of the day with the two witches while he took care of the vampire. He smirked at the thought. Oh yeah, he’d take care of the insufferable little asshole, all right. He’d give him a beat down he’d never forget.

 

**…**

 

_Please tell me this was written by a lesbian or a nun,_ Spike thought in growing horror as he read the _Cosmo_ article on how to please your man. Well, okay, the part about nibbling on a bloke's delicate bits kind of turned _him_ on, but he was a kinky bastard when it came to biting during sex, and he knew it.

He sighed and went from sitting on the edge of the bed to laying across it. He wished his sudden case of narcolepsy from last night would come back so he could at least sleep away the time. But no, his sleep schedule was shot all to hell, leaving him wide awake in the middle of the bloody day with nothing to do but read the horrible magazines he’d found under the Slayer’s bed.

He pitched the current magazine to the floor and wiggled halfway off of the bed to peer under it again. Still nothing but issues of _Cosmo_. He'd also found a stray bobby pin earlier, but he'd tossed it away in disgust after wasting an hour trying to pick the lock on his restraints. Either he'd lost his touch, or Red had magicked the lock. _Ooh, I'm kind of disturbed by this, but I'm totally going to help keep you prisoner anyway,_ he thought mockingly. Bloody hypocrite.

God, he was bored. He looked around the room, noting all of the boy band posters and other bits of fluff. Was this a shrine to an earlier, more feminine, Buffy, or a desperate attempt to be like all of the other girls? He thought about all the times he'd interacted with her, starting with when he'd seen her dancing at The Bronze. She'd been a bubbly thing back then, before Angel had shat out his soul, or whatever.

She'd lost a lot of it, to the point where - as she was now - _he_ could be considered girlier than her by some standards. Though that was mainly because he didn't go along with that rot that it was somehow manly to bottle up your emotions and run away like a little girl from commitment and open communication.

That was another thing he missed about Dru, the conversation. Yeah, she often hadn't made a lick of sense, but they'd still talked. He'd listened to every single word that had dripped from her perfect mouth, no matter how barmy. If she were there with him, she'd be petting and cooing over him right about now, murmuring threats against the Slayer for doing this to her sweet boy. Also rambling about her pixies, dollies, and stars no doubt, but that was to be expected.

He sighed and turned to stare up at the ceiling. He didn't want to think about Dru. He didn't want to think about anything. He was bored and felt like he hadn't eaten in days even though he had downed two mugs of blood just a couple of hours ago. Sodding pig blood might as well have been water.

Maybe he should just tell the Slayer he needed human. It was possible he was wrong about how things would turn out. Hell, he probably was. He gave the chit a week before taking care of another being drove her batty. She'd be begging him to be part of the sprog's life. He knew sod all about things like changing nappies, but he did know what it was like to have someone completely dependent on you. He knew how to take care of people. Babies were people. Just really tiny, helpless people.

_Far to go if you get a proper start, Thursday,_ he thought absently. Then his eyes widened as he realized what he'd just done. Bloody buggering _fuck_. He'd named the bloody thing. You never, ever named a thing if you intended to get rid of it.

Thoughts and feelings started swirling around. He didn't want to deal with this right now, not while trapped in what was basically enemy territory. He couldn't let himself be even more vulnerable to everyone here than he already was. With a snarled curse, he sat up and nearly broke Buffy's nightstand as he savagely pulled the drawer out. There had to be something…. Oh thank god, a pen!

He grabbed his prize and scooped up one of the magazines. He spent the next hour methodically going through it, correcting all of the horrible American spelling and leaving detailed margin notes beside all of the articles. He even took some of the stupid little tests, which revealed that he was apparently a fantastic, attentive girlfriend, but needed to get in touch with his inner empowered goddess, whatever the hell _that_ meant.

_My inner goddess is bored and bloody_ hungry, _just like the rest of me,_ he thought grumpily as he tossed the magazine aside. _Also, very butch._

The inactivity was driving him 'round the bloody bend. He needed a drink. He needed to _hit_ something. Hell, at the moment, he'd even be happy if the Slayer would go by his crypt and pick up his stash of yarn and needles so he could _knit_ something. He'd made outfits for Dru's dolls all the time. Making something for Thurs-

He growled suddenly and vamped out, barely noticing the feeling of disorientation and weakness caused by the change. He viciously sank his fangs into his arm. His blood was even more useless than the pig, but at least it tasted good and the pain gave him something to focus on. He released his arm only to bite into another part of it.

He felt strangely calm. This was something he was choosing to do. He couldn't bite anyone else, couldn't protect himself from his natural prey, couldn't stop a crazed Slayer from doing whatever the hell she wanted to his body, couldn't actively do anything about Thur- the _thing_ inside him, but he could do this. He could think whatever he wanted, say whatever he wanted, and cause himself pain if he wanted. They couldn't take that away from him.

He shook away his vampire visage and went back to staring at the ceiling. He had himself more or less under control now, but he was still bored out of his mind. _At this point, I’d even be happy to see Harris if it meant something to do._

Something thudded against the door. Spike sat up and stared at it incredulously as a familiar scent reached him. The knob jiggled a few times before the door finally opened, revealing the whelp in all his dubious glory. He was holding a cardboard box with a pizza box balanced on it and a six pack of cherry coke on top of that.

Spike looked up at the ceiling once again. “You know,” he said conversationally, “if the universe were kind, it’d also provide a couple bottles of jack and some smokes as well as unchaining me from this sodding bed. But she’s a cold bitch, so there really isn’t any point in asking, is there?”

“What?” The boy’s face wrinkled in confusion, before he shook it off. “Never mind. I don’t think I want to know.”

“Probably not. What’s all this then?” Spike asked as Xander put the box down.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” Harris said with what he probably thought was an evil smirk. It was actually kind of cute. Little boy trying to play at being a big bad.

He turned and walked out of the room, leaving the door wide open. Considering he’d left the pizza and sodas, Spike was fairly certain he’d return. He was proved right several minutes later when the boy came back, lugging a television in his arms. Spike didn’t know what the hell was going on, but the other man definitely had his full attention. The telly was quickly set up and a game console removed from the cardboard box and hooked up.

“Prepare to face utter defeat at the hands of the Xan-man, Master of Super Smash Brothers,” he announced, firmly putting the cartridge into the slot before handing a controller to a very startled vampire. “Oh, and put this on.”

Spike eyed the boy and the glowing stone necklace with equal measures of suspicion. “Uh, thanks, but I don’t really think we’re at the jewelry giving stage of our relationship. I mean, only a few days ago, it was death glares and mutual declarations of passionate hatred. We should take things slow, yeah?”

“That’s from Willow,” Harris said, sitting on the edge of the bed and setting the pizza box between them. He pulled two cherry cokes from the pack and handed one to Spike. “It’s supposed to keep you from turning into a vampsicle and going all kersplody into dust. I’m all for that, honestly, but Buffy has a problem with it right now.”

“Ah.” Spike stared at it for a few more seconds, then sighed. He put the soda and game controller on the nightstand before slipping the leather cord over his head. Instant warmth spread through him. As nice as the electric blanket was, this was even nicer. And easier to keep on, too.

“I hate you with the seething passion of a thousand suns,” Harris stated simply as he got the game ready. He glanced at Spike, then looked away. “But, well….” He took a deep breath. “Faith, you know, that Slayer we tried to get you to help us find?” He continued at Spike’s nod. “She, uh, tried to do to me what Buffy was forced to do to you. So, I hate you, but I kind of know what you’re going through. Except for the whole baby thing. That’s kind of – okay, really – wigsome. So, you know, there’s that.”

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments before Spike took pity on the boy and broke it. “Somethin’ we share then. The terrible burden and pain of being incredibly attractive to super strong crazy women,” he said dryly. “The very angels themselves do weep for us up in the heavens.”

He wasn’t dismissing what Harris had admitted to him or making light of his own experience. He’d just always found things easier to deal with if he threw a heavy dose of sarcasm at them.

“That they do,” Harris said with a crooked grin before focusing on selecting a character. He paused suddenly and looked at him. “Did you just call me attractive?”

Spike smirked and looked him up and down suggestively, unable to resist twitting the boy at least a little, even if he was being unusually nice. “Not really my type, but there is a certain puppyish vibe others might find appealing.”

“Huh.” Harris thought about that for a minute, then shrugged and finally selected his character. “You’re not exactly hideous looking yourself. Now prepare for a beat down of epic proportions.”

“In your dreams, whelp,” Spike muttered with a snort.

Battle was joined, and the two whiled away the next few hours with pizza, soda, and the relative normalcy of traded barbs. Neither one of them noticed when Spike’s hands started shaking slightly.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue and scenes taken from “Out of my Mind”.

Dawn eyed the box of cereal as her mother made omelets, the thought of dumping out the contents into several bowls for the prize floating through her head. She quickly dismissed it. That would be kind of childish, and no one would tell her anything if they kept thinking of her as a child. The only thing she really knew at all was what Spike had told her when he’d been tied to the chair. Well, that and that he was chained up in Buffy’s room right now to keep him safe from her sister if she went all raging freakazoid.

That really didn’t make a lot of sense to her. Why weren’t they chaining Buffy up instead? _It’s ‘cause it’s Buffy,_ she thought, disgruntled. The do-no-wrong golden girl. The oh so precious Slayer. _I bet I’d be the one chained up if I had hot, wild spell sex with Spike and then got all violent._

She couldn’t help wondering what exactly had happened. Had it been like they were both drunk and out of control, or had they been all cuddly and kissy-face like with Willow’s spell last year? All she really had to go on was Spike saying Buffy had sexed him up after being affected by a spell. And now he was going to have a kid, which was way weird, but like she’d said, Hellmouth, you know? Weird stuff was always happening.

“Dawn, honey,” her mom said, cutting into her thoughts. She put a freshly heated mug of blood on a tray with an omelet and held it out to her. “Could you take this up to Spike and wake your sister? I’ll have your breakfast ready by the time you get back.”

“Sure, Mom.”

She fought the urge to bound up the steps, instead taking them slow and steady. She was a mature young person, not a little kid. She balanced the tray on one hand and her forearm as she opened the door and peered inside. Buffy was sprawled across the nest she’d made on the floor, looking grumpy even in her sleep. Spike was awake and playing Ocarina of Time with the volume turned down low enough that she could barely hear it.

“’Lo, Nibblet,” he said without taking his eyes off the screen.

“Hi, Spike,” she said with a smile as she stepped over Buffy and reached past the vampire to set the tray on the nightstand. She nudged her sister with her shoe. “Hey, Buffy, wake up!”

Buffy gave a totally gross sounding grunt-snort before jerking awake and sitting up. She shot a blurry-eyed glare and Dawn and Spike, then got up and started gathering her clothes. “I can’t believe I have to leave my own room to get dressed,” she grumbled.

“I’d be a gentleman and offer to leave, but I’m a bit tied up at the mo’,” Spike said, tugging at the short chain attaching the wrist cuff to the bedframe. “’Course, if you were to unlock this, I’d be out of your hair right quick.”

“Shut up, Spike,” Buffy muttered, stalking out of the room.

Dawn rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to Spike. He’d paused the game to drink down the cup of blood. He looked tired, which made sense. He was nocturnal, after all, and it was morning. It was probably past his usual bedtime.

“You doing okay?” she asked him.

He studied her for a moment, then shrugged. “’Bout as well as can be expected, given the situation.”

“The situation,” she repeated. “What, um, what exactly _is_ the situation? I mean, all I really know is that you and Buffy, uh… had sex,” she could feel her cheeks heating as she said the word, “and now she’s all crazy protective of the kid you guys are having. And for some reason, everyone thinks it makes sense to keep you prisoner while they try to find a way to make the crazy go away.”

“Bit more to it than that, pidge, but that does about sum it up nicely,” he said, not offering any more details.

“Dawn,” her mother’s voice called up before she could ask anything else. “Your breakfast is ready.”

With a quick goodbye to Spike, Dawn left the room and headed downstairs. She popped into the kitchen just in time to see her mom blink and stagger. She shook her head and peered at Dawn as if she’d never seen her before.

“Oh, what is the…. Who _are_ you?”

“ _Buffy!_ ” Dawn screamed as their mother fell to the floor, unconscious.

 

**…**

 

Willow returned home from a day at the Summers residence and was immediately welcomed into Tara’s warm embrace. She leaned into that comfort, letting her worry over Buffy’s mom wash through her. Her own mother had always been kind of emotionally distant, and she had taken to Joyce’s maternal comfort through the years as if she was another one of her daughters. It hadn’t felt right, though, to fall apart in front of her real daughters, so she’d been perky and… well, Willowy during the entire long visit. The doctors had sent Joyce home, but hadn’t given a clear reason for her collapse. Willow hated uncertainty. It was so… uncertain.

“Hey, sweetie,” Tara said, pulling away just enough to smile and caress her cheek. “You going to be okay?”

“Yeah,” Willow answered with a smile of her own. “I just wish there was something I could do to help. Like a healing spell or, or something. At least I was able to help a little with the Spike situation, though. I used a strengthening spell on the banister and set up a spell lock on a longer chain than the one in Buffy’s room.”

“…what?” Tara backed away from her, looking confused and alarmed. “Chain? Spike is being chained up at Buffy’s house?”

“Well, yeah. Otherwise he’d try to kill the baby,” Willow said defensively. She felt uneasy at her girlfriend’s reaction and hurried to explain. “I feel kind of bad, not letting him do what he wants, but it’s Buffy’s baby, and she wants it. A woman has a right to decide if she wants to keep her child or not.”

Tara just stared at her like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Willow, th-that’s because the, the woman is usually the one carrying the baby.”

Willow’s heart sank. She’d upset the other woman so much that she was stuttering, something Tara hadn’t done around her in a while. She knew Tara was right, but the politically correct thing was to go with whatever Buffy wanted in this situation. Correct and right were synonyms. That meant it _had_ to be right, didn’t it?

This was too much like the whole Chumash tribe incident. It was wrong to fight native peoples, no matter what, but the spirits had been hurting innocent people and had even made Xander sick. She’d fought back when it came right to it, but she’d been disgusted with herself. There had also been a part of herself that had been disgusted that she’d refused to accept that fighting had been the right thing in that situation. It was all so _confusing._

“Yeah, but, but….” She floundered for some way to convince Tara that they were all doing the right thing. “Spike is a vampire. So the right thing is to go with what Buffy wants, because she’s a person and he’s a demon.”

Her girlfriend paled and flinched as if she’d been struck. Then a determined look crossed her face and she headed towards the door.

“Tara, baby, where you going?”

“To do the right thing,” the blonde announced, walking out without a single glance back.

 

**…**

 

“… sorry I couldn’t take the time from worrying about my mother _passing out_ to give you a call!”

Tara slowed her approach as she got close enough to the house on Revello Drive to hear Buffy’s angry comment. She and Riley were standing outside in front of the door, neither one looking particularly happy. She wanted to slink away and hide from the anger, but she had to do this.

“Damn it, Buffy, how I can be here to take care of you when you won’t tell me what’s going on?”

“I don’t need you to take care of me,” Buffy said, sounding frustrated and tired. “I just… I can’t deal with this right now. I’m not dealing with this right now.”

She turned and stormed back into the house, leaving Riley to stalk away into the night. Tara watched him go, waiting until he was out of sight before heading in after Buffy. With the mood the ex-commando was in, she didn’t think it’d be a good idea for him to still be nearby when she freed Spike.

When she walked into the living room, Dawn was sitting near Joyce’s feet on the couch while Buffy knelt on the floor next to her mother’s head. She looked up, confusion turning to concern when she saw Tara.

“What’s wrong? Did Willow get home okay?”

“She, she’s fine,” Tara stuttered nervously, trying to give a reassuring smile. “I-it’s just… um…. I’m sorry,” she blurted out as she darted forward and put a hand on Buffy’s head. “Somnus.”

Dawn looked startled and Joyce understanding as Buffy slumped to the floor, fast asleep. Relief flooded through her at their reactions. She’d been worried they’d be upset with her and that she’d have to use the sleep spell on them as well.

“Thank you, Tara,” the older woman said calmly. Then she looked over at her youngest. “Dawn, I washed Spike’s clothes. Please go downstairs and get them along with his coat and boots.”

“Uh… yeah, okay,” Dawn said, blinking in confusion before standing up and doing as her mother asked.

Joyce got up from her nest of pillows and grabbed her purse, pulling several twenties from it before heading towards the stairs. Tara silently followed her up and into Buffy’s room. The sight of Spike chained to the bed made her feel sick.

“Visiting time for the inmate, is it?” he asked blandly, looking the two of them over.

“I-I… I’m, uh, here to, um, get that off of you,” Tara said, lightly touching the metal cuff around his wrist. She murmured the words of an unlocking spell just as Dawn came thundering up the stairs with Spike’s things.

The vampire rubbed his suddenly free wrist, his head tilted slightly in curiosity as he watched the teenager drop his clothing onto the bed. “What’s this all about, then?”

“B-Buffy’s asleep right now, but I don’t know how l-long it will last,” Tara told him.

“If you go out through the window, it’ll give you a little bit more of a head start,” Joyce said, holding out the money. “This should be enough to get you out of town.”

“’Preciate it, Joyce,” he said quietly, taking the money before pulling on his t-shirt. He glanced at the rest of his clothes, then at them. “Not to be rude, but uh….”

“Right. Dawn, come on.”

“You… you’ll come back once it’s safe, right?” the teenager asked, her voice hopeful.

“Sure thing, little bit. Not gonna let big sis dictate where I live,” Spike said with a smirk. He glanced at Tara. “You ever need anything, let me know. If I can help – and, you know, I feel like it – I will.”

“Thanks,” she said, smiling slightly.

The smile lasted until she was heading downstairs with two-thirds of the Summers women. She might have to take Spike up on that offer someday soon. She didn’t want to go back to her family, leaving her with limited options once Willow discovered what she was. Demons weren’t people, after all, and she couldn’t imagine her girlfriend wanting to be with someone she didn’t consider a person.

 

**…**

 

The Slayer was after her. She was sure of it. Harmony paced Spike’s crypt nervously, wondering where he could be. Had the Slayer gotten him? Was he being held prisoner in the Slayer’s house, kept as a hostage so Buffy could call her out? Harmony gave that thought serious consideration for only a moment before dismissing it.

The idea that the Slayer might have her boyfriend – _ex-boyfriend,_ she reminded herself, though she intended to fix that once he came back from wherever he was – chained up somewhere was just ridiculous. That did give her some fun ideas, though. Her blondie bear liked bondage, though it’d taken him forever to admit he preferred being the one restrained. It was because of that horrible Droodzilla woman. She’d crushed poor Spikey’s heart and left him with all kinds of trust issues. She’d fix that, too, eventually.

She nearly shrieked when the door burst open, thinking the Slayer had found her, but it was Spike. He looked tired and agitated and sexy as hell with his hair all mussed up and curly.

“Spike, you have to hide me!” she blurted out. “I’m the Slayer ‘s nemesis, and now she’s after me! Last night, she was running around the cemeteries with a _stake_. She wants to kill me!”

“…What the bloody hell are you on about?” he asked, staring at her like she was some kind of weird space alien. Before she could say anything, he waved away her unvoiced explanation. “You know what? I don’t care. I don’t even want to know why you’re here. Just leave.”

“Oh, come on, Spikey, don’t be like this,” she said, pressing up against him suggestively.

They’d had their problems, but the sex had always been good. She was sure he would keep her hidden and safe from the Slayer in return for a bit of nookie. That certainty lasted right up until he shoved her to the ground and backed away instead of following her down.

“Don’t touch me!” he snapped. “I’m not your sodding property. You can’t just rub yourself all over me when the fancy strikes you.”

She could feel tears welling up in her eyes as she looked up in confusion. “What the hell? What was that all about?”

He’d been mean to her before – heck, he’d even staked her once – but this was different. She knew she wasn’t exactly smart. Her looks were all she really had going for her, and he was treating her like she was physically gross or something. Which… was actually kind of weird, now that she thought about it. So was the whole “don’t touch me” thing. Her blondie bear was a cuddly little snuggle muffin. He _liked_ being touched.

“Are you okay?” she asked, scrambling to her feet.

He stared at her for a moment with eyes that were just a little too wide, then shook his head and laughed. “Now that’s a question, init?” He opened his mouth to say more before shaking his head again and sighing. He ran a noticeably trembling hand through his hair. “Slayer’s likely on her way here right now. You scarper off, an’ I’ll tell her I haven’t seen you if she asks.”

“The Slayer’s coming _here_?” Harmony squeaked, her concern for Spike utterly washed away by the much more important concern for herself. “Oh geez, oh geez, oh geez.”

She darted past him and out the still open door. _Maybe I can head to L.A. and see how Cordelia’s doing?_ she thought as she ran through the darkened cemetery.

 

**…**

 

Spike watched Harmony leave, wondering why he’d ever taken up with the dozy bit of fluff in the first place. Well, no, not really. He knew _exactly_ why he’d done it. He’d been lonely and brassed off at all women after Dru had left him. He’d been on the lookout for the kind of vapid and self-centered little bint he could snuggle up with without any risk of falling in love. Someone he could use and discard at a whim, just as Dru had done after over a hundred years of being her faithful little puppy dog.

He pushed away the thoughts of his crazy ex-girlfriend and ditzy ex-tumble and focused on his current situation. He didn’t know how long Glinda’s spell was going to last, so he had to assume the Slayer was already awake. Coming to the crypt had been a calculated risk. It was likely to be the first place she’d look, but his car keys and weapons were here. The DeSoto would get him out of town faster than his own two feet – especially with the dizzy spells he was still getting – and the weapons…. Well, one good knife and his problems would be solved. He might not even have to leave Sunnydale. Not that he particularly liked the place, but it did have a nice setup for the huntingly challenged.

First things first, he’d get rid of the sprog, then he’d leave town for a week or so to give the Slayer a chance to cool off. His course of action decided on, Spike headed for one of the sarcophagi and pushed back the lid. He snatched up his keys and a long dagger, stuffing the former into one of his pockets.

He held the dagger’s hilt with both hands, preparing to plunge it into his own body when it suddenly occurred to him that he didn’t actually have a clue where the bloody thing was. _Prob’ly same place as in a woman,_ he decided. Made sense to tuck it in with all the squidgy bits. _Right then, let’s do this._

“Sorry, Thursday, nothin’ personal,” he muttered, his grip tightening on the dagger.

He thrust the blade towards his middle only to stop a few centimeters short of his target. He… couldn’t do it. He’d named the sodding thing, and now he couldn’t bloody well do it. _Oh, come on,_ he thought in disgust, _traveled about with Dru for a hundred plus years, didn’t I? Killin’ kids ain’t exactly new._ Of course, none of those nummy little snacks had been _his_.

With a snarled curse, he flung the dagger to the ground. The Slayer could go on all she wanted about the sprog being hers, but his claim to it was greater. He was the one carrying it, wasn’t he? He didn’t have to kill Thursday, or even passively let it die from malnutrition. He could use the dosh Joyce had given him to set up in some other town. He could take over a nest of minions and send them out after prey for him. He hadn’t tried it, but he was pretty sure he could feed from someone if they were already dead.

Of course, he’d be constantly having to defend his position. No matter what spectacular display of violence he used to take out the leader, no one would respect a vamp who couldn’t kill his own prey. Normally, that would actually be a bit of a bonus, the thrill of never knowing when a fight for control was going to break out. But not when a lucky strike from an opponent could potentially hurt Thursday.

He also had to admit that actually taking over a bunch of minions in the first place might not exactly be a walk in the park. He was already weak and starving, and he could feel the drain on his energy steadily increasing. Bugger all, it was looking like his best option might be running back to the Slayer with his tail tucked between his legs. He growled and punched the wall, barely noticing as his knuckles split from the force of the blow.

 

**…**

 

Buffy ran through the open crypt door just in time to see Spike stop short of stabbing himself in the gut. She froze, her heart racing in a panic as she tried to figure out what to do. One wrong move on her part, and her baby would be dead. Why had he stopped? Why was he just staring at the blade?

He abruptly spat out a stream of British curse words and threw the dagger to the ground. She couldn’t see his expression, but he sounded disgusted with himself. Why hadn’t he done it? She suddenly remembered his offer to cooperate if he could be a part of the child’s life and the resigned look when she’d immediately shot it down.

What if…? Had he actually been _serious_? Even with that look, she’d thought he was just being a jerk and mocking her by setting up conditions he knew she’d refuse. Why the hell would a vampire want a baby? If Angelus had one…. Buffy shuddered. The poor thing would probably end up tortured to death and nailed to its mother’s door.

Spike, though? Weirdly enough, the first thing to pop into her head was the blond vampire dressed like the Goblin King and singing _Dance, Magic, Dance_ while holding an infant in ugly striped jammies. She shook that image from her head just as Spike growled and lunged forward to punch the wall.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, running his undamaged hand through his hair as he began pacing in agitation. He stopped and glared up at the ceiling. “Do you get some kind of sick satisfaction in buggering up my existence? Am I just some colossal joke to you or some kind of entertainment? Why can’t you just get a telly and watch _Passions_ like a normal bloke?”

At first, Buffy thought he had finally noticed her and that she was the target of his rant. Then she realized she was watching a vampire yell at God, which was all kinds of weird.

“William the Bloody Sentimental Git,” Spike said mockingly, his ire no longer focused towards the heavens. “Finally get away from the crazy megabitch, and I can’t even off the sprog because I’ve gone and fallen in love with it like a right ponce.”

Buffy stared at him incredulously. Spike loved the baby? How was that even…?  _Vampires can’t love,_ her mind practically screamed at her. Except… that wasn’t true, and deep inside, she knew it. She’d used Spike’s love of Drusilla against him when Ford had trapped her in that basement. In fact, it had never even occurred to her to think they couldn’t love until after….  _Until after I destroyed Angel’s love for me,_ she thought numbly.

She must have made some small sound because Spike suddenly froze. “Come to smack me around a bit before dragging me back in chains, have you?” he asked, his voice disturbingly lifeless. He turned to face her, shoulders slumped and gaze lowered towards the ground. He looked tired and defeated.

“Get on with it, then. Not gonna try to stop you.” He laughed bitterly. “Not like I actually could. You can do whatever you bloody well like to me, and I can’t do a sodding thing about it, now can I?”

He didn’t move as she slowly approached him, just kept staring at the ground with an utter stillness that was just alien and wrong when it came to Spike. She’d done this to him. The spell – which she belatedly realized had stopped making her see Spike as a threat to the baby the instant he’d thrown down the dagger – was to blame for some of it, but not all.

How would things have gone if she’d done things differently? If she’d agreed to the idea of some sort of joint custody or something? If she hadn’t punched him when he’d baited her? If she’d talked to him like she’d intended instead of running off when he’d jerked away from her? If she’d treated him like a fellow victim – he was more of one, honestly – instead of like he was an annoying part of the problem?

With a choked sob, she threw herself at him, pressing her face against his chest. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

She felt him flinch and stiffen in her arms just as it occurred to her that he probably really didn’t want her touching him right now. Before she could pull away, he hesitantly patted her on the back.

“That’s enough of that, now, Slayer,” he said gruffly. “Not your fault those demons were doing their sodding ritual in the middle of a cemetery instead of the privacy of their own home.”

She shook her head, still crying against his chest. “No, no, it’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I’m a monster. I have to be. There’s something wrong with me. Something bad inside of me. It’s why Daddy left us, and why Angel couldn’t love me without his soul.”

Spike pushed her away gently enough not to trigger the chip and grabbed her shoulders. “You listen here, missy. Your father is a bloody wanker who isn’t good enough for a woman like Joyce. As for Angelus….” He trailed off with a snort of disgust. “The great and mighty forehead didn’t exactly change when he lost his soul. He just reverted to type.”

“That doesn’t explain why he couldn’t love me. Why can’t he love? You can love,” she said, her tone bordering on accusatory. “You loved Dru. You… I heard you. You love my… our kid.”

Part of her hated him for it. Hated his ability to love. Why couldn’t he have left her with her thin illusion that it was the lack of a soul and not something wrong and twisted inside of her?

“Our….” The look in his eyes was hopeful and guarded at the same time. He shook his head and sighed. “Look, Slayer, you’ve got this all wrong in your head. First of all, Angelus isn’t the bloody cookie cutter all vampires are pressed from. We’re as different from each other as individual humans are. Secondly, your ex-honey can love perfectly well even without the shiny soul. It’s just that his heart is so stuffed full of himself that there’s no room for anyone else. So the question init what’s wrong with you that made him not love you without the soul. The question is, what is it about you that let you wiggle in when the soul made an opening.”

She stared at him wide eyed. She’d never thought of it that way. That… that couldn’t be true, could it? “That can’t…. You mean it wasn’t my fault?” she whispered. “I didn’t make him like that?”

“I _have_ known him a mite longer than –” Spike began. Then his eyes rolled up into the back of his head, and he collapsed to the ground, convulsing.

“ _Spike_?”

She stared down at him in panic, Willow’s words echoing in her head. _He’ll get weak and a little disoriented at first, eventually followed by shaking of the extremities, dizziness, and then convulsions. Not long after that, dustiness._ What had they done wrong? She didn’t have time to try to figure it out. She had to _do_ something.

The dagger Spike had tried to use suddenly caught her eye, and an idea formed in her mind. _This better work,_ she thought grimly, grabbing it and digging the tip into her wrist. Without giving herself time to think about what she was doing, she dropped down to her knees beside him and pressed her wrist against his mouth.


	5. Chapter 5

The crypt was eerily quiet as Buffy gingerly touched her swollen eye, the pain a welcome distraction from her confused thoughts and muddled emotions. She glanced over at the cause of all three things and away again. Spike. Spike, who was fully capable of loving, to the point where he hadn’t been able to kill her – _their_ – child, even though it would have made things a lot easier for him. For both of them, honestly.

Vampires could love. Angelus had been as capable of love as Angel. She’d tried to deny it. Tried to pretend that what she had seen between Spike and Drusilla hadn’t been real love, despite all of the evidence that proved otherwise. He’d backed off and let her escape that basement for Dru. He’d gone through all the trouble of finding the madwoman’s cure. He’d even teamed up with Buffy to save the world. All for Dru, who’d left him a devastated, broken shadow of himself when she’d dumped him. You couldn’t have heartbreak like that without a heart that loved.

_Angelus could love,_ she thought numbly. _He just… just couldn’t love me._ Even as she wallowed in misery, Spike’s words rose up, pushed to the surface by the piece of her that had retained hope and optimism throughout her years as the Slayer. _The question is, what is it about you that let you wiggle in when the soul made an opening._

She’d been told before that it hadn’t been her fault, that there was nothing wrong with her, but it had been friends and family who had said it. Even if Spike hadn’t been her enemy, the events of the past couple of days would have been enough to make him want to hurt her in any way he could. Why bother to make up a comforting lie instead of going with the painful truth?

There was a sound off to her right, and Buffy guiltily shifted her attention back to Spike. He was huddled against the wall roughly four feet from where she was sitting, his coat wrapped tightly around his body like armor and his head in his hands.

Her blood had brought him back to consciousness, but he’d reacted badly to being sprawled on his back with her kneeling over him. He’d struck out in a panic, and she’d instinctively hit him back before she could stop herself.

“So… uh, how’s the headache?” Buffy asked, wincing at how awkward she sounded.

The motion made her eye hurt. _Thank god for slayer healing,_ she thought. It’d be nothing but a memory by morning.

“Let you know once my brain stops exploding,” Spike mumbled.

Buffy frowned worriedly. She hadn’t really witnessed very many of his chip-induced headaches, but this one seemed to be lasting longer than the few she had seen. His hands were shaking, but she didn’t know if it was from pain, stress, or the effects of whatever it was that they weren’t doing right for him.

What exactly _had_ they gotten wrong? He was getting human food, and she’d seen him wearing the stone Willow and Tara had enchanted. It had to be the blood. He wasn’t getting enough.

“How much blood do vampires actually need?” she asked, feeling guilty that she hadn’t bothered to before.

Spike lifted his head to look at her, still obviously in pain from both the chip and the punch to the nose. The entire area was already starting to bruise, making him look raccoon-ish. She’d broken his nose lots of times, and this was the first time the healing process hadn’t basically skipped over the whole swelling and bruising phase. He’d had barely a swallow of her blood before coming to. It had apparently been enough to pull him out of the convulsions, but not enough to do anything about his disturbingly sluggish healing.

“Roughly five liters if it’s human,” he said after a moment. “Pro’ly more for the pig slop.”

“Five li-” Buffy’s jaw dropped at that. Five liters. Two-and-a-half soda bottles. No way did the amount of blood they’d been giving him a day add up to anywhere near that. “You’ve been going hungry the past couple of days, and you didn’t _say_ anything?”

He laughed at her, the sound mostly bitter but with a tinge of genuine amusement. “I’ve been hungry pretty much every second of every sodding day since those bloody soldiers got hold of me. What I’ve had at your place is no less than normal.”

She stared at him blankly for a moment, not sure how to feel about that. Spike had been starving himself for almost a year? Why would he do that? Maybe all the money he kept insisting they give him if they wanted help wasn’t just him being a selfish asshole. Blood _did_ cost money when you couldn’t get it straight from the tap anymore. 

“Why? Why would you….?”

“You know those Belgian chocolates shaped like shells and seahorses with the hazelnut filling in ‘em?” Spike suddenly asked.

“Um, yeah,” Buffy said, blinking at the seeming non-sequitur. “They’re really good.”

Had the chip scrambled his brain more than normal, or was he just really wanting chocolate? She could definitely relate to that. She wished she could just curl up at home with a box of chocolates and watch some dumb chick flick. She suddenly found herself wondering if Spike liked chick flicks. Considering his apparent love of weird soap operas, it was always possible.

“Imagine that something happens and makes them your food source. Everything you need is in them, and you never get bored with ‘em or crave anything else. Then, _BAM!_ ” She jumped slightly as he abruptly clapped his hands together. “You’re stuck eating bloody _carob_ while the tasty chocolates dance all about, taunting you. It’d put you right off your feed, I’d wager.”

Buffy wrinkled her nose and shuddered a little in disgust. She’d tried carob once, when her mom had been on a health food kick. Never, ever again. She didn’t exactly feel sorry for Spike for not being able to eat people anymore, but she did acknowledge – to herself at least – that it had to be pretty awful from his point of view. What the Initiative had done was the equivalent of declawing and muzzling a leopard, leaving it surrounded by its natural prey, unable to eat anything but tofu.

“Maybe… maybe we could do something to make it taste be-” she began to offer. Spike was shaking his head before she could even finish the word.

“Doesn’t matter what it tastes like or how much of the stuff I can get down, not if we want to keep the sprog. You don’t have a sacred duty to hunt vampires because we raid livestock all the bloody time. We eat _humans_. Animal blood is like trying to live on meal replacement shakes instead of proper food. You can do it, but ‘s not exactly healthy, now is it?”

Buffy felt a chill creep through her at Spike’s matter-of-fact words. He didn’t sound like it was something he had just figured out. This was something he’d known – _He probably figured it out when it took some of my blood to finally start healing right from the beating I gave him,_ she realized – and hadn’t told anyone.

“You… you _idiot_ ,” she spat, suddenly furious. “You were just going to let yourself and the baby _die_ instead of telling me you need human blood? We could have found some kind of solution by now!”

Spike looked at her like she was crazy. “First of all, pet, seemed a good way to get rid of the problem. Secondly, ‘s not as if you were likely to believe me. Thirdly, vampires don’t actually die from starvation, so I would’ve been fine. Just really, really hungry, since the pig is doing sod all for me with the sprog absorbing it all or whatnot.”

“What part of turning into a big pile of dust if you don’t get what the baby needs to be healthy did you not under-”

She stopped abruptly at his confused expression, realizing that no one had actually bothered to tell him about any of that. That _she_ hadn’t bothered to tell him any of that. It hadn’t really seemed all that important. She’d had him chained up at her house and was taking care of him. Why would she have needed to explain things?

“What the bloody hell are you on about?” he asked. He tugged on the leather cord around his neck, pulling the glowing stone up out from under his shirt. “Harris mentioned somethin’ about that if I didn’t wear this little bauble, but what’s that got to do with….” He trailed off, glaring at her. “More to it than that, then?” he said flatly.

“Uh… yeah,” Buffy said with a wince. She and guilt were getting really chummy over this whole mess. At this rate, it’d be expecting an expensive Christmas gift from her. “Apparently you need human food, warmth, and plenty of blood or the baby’ll end up sucking up all of your demon juice and you’ll go poof.”

Spike was quiet for a moment as he took in the fact that his plan to let their child die from malnutrition would have killed him, too. His jaw clenched before he opened his mouth to say something. Then he snapped it closed and just shook his head in disgust.

“You’re a real piece of work, Summers, you know that?” he finally said. “You can toe the Council of Wankers party line all you like, but I _am_ actually a person with real actual feelings. I’m not some sodding doll you can play about with all willy nilly as it suits you. You can’t just... just….”

He abruptly stood up and turned away from her before beginning to pace. “I’ll tell you what you _can_ do. You can show yourself out, yeah?”

“What? Oh, no, no, no,” Buffy said, surging to her feet. “You can’t stay here. You have to come back to the house with me.”

“What, because you’ve been taking such good care of me?” he asked, voice practically dripping with sarcasm. “Been takin’ care of myself for over a hundred years. I’m a damn sight better at it than you are. Not gonna hurt the sprog, and I’ll find some way to get human blood. We don’t need you, so you can shove off.”

She stared at him, eyes wide. She couldn’t just let him stay here. Didn’t he realize it wasn’t _safe_? Anyone could just barge in. There was also the fact that he tended towards the stupidly reckless. Even if he wasn’t actively trying, he’d probably get the baby killed.

Before she could voice any of the thoughts tumbling through her head, Spike’s pacing came to a halt as he stumbled, swaying slightly. Dizziness was one of the danger signs Willow had told her about. The small amount of blood she’d given him had pulled him from the brink, but he apparently wasn’t out of the woods yet. She knew it was a really bad idea, but she couldn’t stop herself from lunging forward and tackling him to the ground.

“Hey! Get off!” he yelled as she straddled him, pinning his arms above his head with her right hand to keep him from lashing out and making the chip fire again.

She squirmed against him, trying to hold him still as he bucked and twisted under her. She fought back the urge to slap him and call him a pig in response to his body’s reaction to all of their movements. _Yeah, Buffy, because it’s totally his fault that he’s having an automatic response to you rubbing all over him like a big ol’ hobag,_ she thought at herself in disgust. If she could just get him to hold _still_ for a minute….

“Damn it, Spike, stop it! I’m not going to do anything, just hold still!” With a frustrated growl, she savagely bit into her own left wrist before trying to press it against his mouth. “Calm down and have some nice Slayer blood.”

Stupid ritual. It had made her act before she could form a sensible plan, and now Spike was having a panic attack or something and wouldn’t take her blood. She rolled off to the side, grabbing him and yanking him back down when he tried to scramble to his feet. This time, though, she pulled him against her, spooning him with her arm under his head and bleeding wrist pressed to his face.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay, calm down,” she murmured, running her free hand along his side.

He was trembling, and she realized that the petting probably wasn’t helping much. She knew she wouldn’t have wanted to be petted by someone who had raped her, especially after being practically molested by that same person in a really stupid attempt to help. Her fingers grazed a patch of bare skin where his shirt had ridden up, and the tension in his body ratcheted up several notches before it was suddenly gone.

_What the…?_ Something cool and wet abruptly slid across her wrist. She was confused enough by Spike’s reaction to her touch that it actually took her a moment to realize he was lapping at her blood. Then his mouth was covering the jagged wounds and sucking at them. She slid her hand under his shirt and kept up with the skin-to-skin petting, since it actually seemed to be helping for some reason. By the time she started feeling light-headed, the draw on her blood stopped.

“Spike?” She frowned at the lack of response. “Spike?”

This time there was a faint, indecipherable mumble, but nothing else. She carefully moved her left arm out from under him and partially sat up to look over his shoulder at him. His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be asleep.

_That… sounds really good right about now,_ she thought, exhaustion crashing over her. She clumsily bandaged her wrist with a strip torn from her top before laying back down. She hesitantly settled her arm over his waist, her hand snaking back under his shirt. _I’ll just close my eyes for a minute,_ she thought muzzily as she drifted off to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue taken from the episode “Out of My Mind”.

_Drusilla twirled gracefully to her own secret tune and reached out to him, pulling him into her dance as she glided through a warmly lit ballroom_ _. The light suddenly took on a sinister cast, and shadowy figures appeared – a mix of male and female – letting out cold, mocking laughter and hateful words before fading away._

_“Did you hear? The slayer’s little pet vampire is now her whore.”_

_“Really, now, that isn’t what happened, and you know that quite well. Whores at least hold out for pay. That one gives it out for free.”_

_“My poor, sweet boy,” Dru said sadly. “Don’t you understand? Rubbish isn’t meant to be treated nicely. It’s meant to be thrown out in the cold, where it belongs. Even I realized that, and I’m quite mad.”_

_She pulled away from him, taking his hand in hers as she led the way to the door. Then she opened it and shoved him out._

_He fell face first into a drift of snow, sinking down, down, down into the frozen depths until he found himself crammed into an ice coffin, looking into the frozen, rotted visage of the original occupant. No air. Air was life, without it he was just a dead thing._

_He wiggled and squirmed, freeing his arms enough to tear at the decayed corpse, ripping it to tattered bits until he could get to the bottom of the coffin. Had to dig down, make a little hole to turn about in before he could go back up. The ice sliced his hands as he broke through, drops of blood becoming shining garnets as they froze._

_Digging down into the dirt, and then tipping into the hole and falling, falling, falling. Down through the Initiative labs – they were supposed to_ fix _him, not leave him a broken toy for anyone to pick up – and out into the sky, forever falling until…_

_He was all alone, the icy wind cutting at his flesh with sticks and stones made of cruel words. An unwanted thing, wasn’t he? No one to belong to, no one that was his._

_The wind died away as a tiny hand gripped his. A little girl with big blue eyes and curly brown hair gazed up at him, her other hand pointing towards an indistinct shape in the distance. She led him to it, a journey of a thousand years taken in a single step and ending at a twisted, dead tree. His coat hung from one lifeless branch._

_He put it on and the hazy blur of the world suddenly jumped into sharp focus, revealing the Darla/Buffy/Angelus_ thing _. He knew, without even trying to fight it, that the twisted mass of melted together flesh counted as human despite being two-thirds vampire. He pulled the little girl behind him, putting himself between her and it. He couldn’t stop it, couldn’t even fight back once it got to them, but he could do this. He could be her shield even if he couldn’t be a sword._

_Suddenly_ she _was there, the Slayer, wielding the sword she’d used when they’d teamed up to stop Angelus from destroying the world. She was a thing of beauty as she fought, poetry crystallized into physical form, each movement a verse in perfect flow and meter. She slashed away the Buffy head first, then Darla, and finally even Angelus was gone._

_She cleaned her blade in the snow and turned towards him, an unreadable look in her eyes. Sunlight glinted on the sword as it rose into the air and fell… slicing into the Slayer’s own arm, freeing her blood to fill the world as she held it out to him in silent invitation._

 

**…**

 

As he slowly drifted towards awareness, Spike thought the taste of slayer lingering on his tongue was just a remnant of his dream. Then the doozy of a nightmare was banished from his thoughts as memory caught up with the rest of him. The Slayer pinning him down and rubbing herself all over him while trying to give him more of her blood. She was curled along the curve of his back now, her knees tucked up behind his and one hand under his shirt, splayed along his abdomen.

He tried to roll away from her, but she made a sound somewhere between a whimper and a possessive growl and just held him tighter. Little miss bloody-well-can’t-keep-her-sodding-mitts-to-herself apparently didn’t want to let go of her vampire teddy bear. Right then, he’d just wait for her to wake up, slap him around a bit in disgust, and stalk off. Or… she’d wake up, paw at him like he was a mindless piece of meat, then drag him away to keep chained in her room again.

He swallowed hard, fighting back the wave of panic threatening to crash over him. No, no, no, no, _no!_ He was bloody well _not_ going to…. He couldn’t stop the shiver that ran through him. She was around him and in him, in more ways than one. Her blood singing through him, making his entire body buzz with energy and life. Her essence making up half of Thursday.

He would never be free of her. No matter what he did or where he went, she’d be there. It was like Dru had said, the Slayer was all around him, forever a reminder of the horrible, wretched helplessness the Initiative had cursed him with. Had Dru seen this? Had those bloody pixies shown her what would happen and tricked her into thinking he’d cheated on her? Was that why she’d thrown him away after one hundred and twenty years of being her good little doggy?

The Slayer’s hand suddenly twitched, lightly petting as she somehow managed to snuggle closer. “’s okay,” she mumbled in her sleep. “Ev’thing’s okay.”

A feeling of calm descended over him, just as it had earlier when she’d petted him while trying to get him to drink her blood. Huh. That was weird, now wasn’t it? Her touch should be making things worse, not better. And why had it only had any effect when she was actively doing something instead of just passively touching him?

It didn’t really matter right then, though, did it? Spike very calmly grabbed Buffy’s arm and lifted it up enough to roll away before she could cling any tighter. He stayed down on the floor, taking several slow, deep breaths. The comforting feeling of his lungs expanding and contracting caused a more familiar kind of calm. He felt more clear-headed and in control than he had since the crazy bint had repeatedly whacked him upside the head.

Right then, time to take advantage of that and get everything sorted. He got to his feet and started pacing, unable to stay still with slayer blood in him. Potent stuff, slayer blood was. Almost felt like he could take Angelus on and win. Angelus. Angel…. The Great Poof was still in L.A., wasn’t he? There were probably lots of places there to get clean, fresh human blood.

It’d be expensive, no doubt, but he’d once spent a decade perfecting the lifting lay and even kept his hand in a bit here in Sunnydale. In a place as crowded as Los Angeles, he’d easily be able to pickpocket his way to financial security. Except that wouldn’t really help with any other kind of security.

There were all sorts of human gangs in L.A., weren’t there? Then there was the problem of his grandsire. The city was big enough that they might never even encounter each other, but with his luck, Angel would be one of the first people he’d come across. Maybe he could deliberately seek him out? Take Glinda with him to explain about the chip – if he didn’t already know about it – and the sprog. He really didn’t want Angel knowing about it, but the great and mighty forehead would be less likely to dust him if it meant killing something that was half Buffy.

Of course, in that particular scenario, Angel would probably decide it was up to him to keep Buffy’s child safe, and Spike would end up in chains anyway, no doubt with Peaches mocking him the entire time. Ugh. If he was going to end up in captivity no matter what he did, the Summers house really did seem like the best place for it.

Joyce was a good conversationalist, and he’d had a fondness for Dawn ever since the little bit had stomped on his foot in an attempt at defiance. It’d been so bloody adorable that he’d decided not to feed her to Dru and had mentally struck her from the menu. As for the Slayer herself….

He sighed and stopped pacing to look at the still sleeping girl. He’d told Joyce the truth when he’d said he considered what had happened to be mutually non-consensual. He didn’t blame her for the things the ritual had made her do. Hell, even the things that had been her own doing weren’t entirely her fault. She’d been told for years that vampires weren’t people because they didn’t have souls. Her honey becoming a right bastard – or, well, more of one anyway – after losing his hadn’t exactly done anything to dissuade her of that notion.

She probably thought of vampires as no more than animals. If your poodle went and got up the duff, you didn’t bother telling it what you’d learnt from the vet. You just took care of it and did what you could to keep it healthy and safe. Her approach would have worked out splendidly if he actually _had_ been a poodle. No, instead he probably just bloody well looked like one at the mo’ because the irritating chit hadn’t been considerate enough to kidnap some hair gel along with him.

He sighed again and rubbed his hand over his face before sliding it through his tousled curls. God, what a confusing mess. She’d noticed right away when the dizzy spell had hit and had jumped him, an action no doubt caused by the ritual. His recollections after that were a bit hazy, but he was pretty sure she’d actually been trying to calm him down during that. Why had she bothered? She could have just hit him until he stopped struggling, but she hadn’t. Instead, she’d used words and soothing gestures, and had let him drink her blood without trying to control how much he took.

He walked over to her and nudged her with the toe of his boot, jumping back in immediate reaction when she sat up. Bugger it. He _had_ to stop doing things like that. Wasn’t any of her business that he was… well, not quite scared, but definitely nervous around her.

“Why didn’t you hit me?” he asked before she had a chance to say anything.

“Huh?” She blinked at him in slack-jawed bewilderment.

“You were trying to get me to hold still,” he clarified. “Why didn’t you just hit me? Would have been easier.”

“Why would I hit you? I don’t just hit for no reason.”

He backed away at the angry indignation in her voice, disguising the retreat as the beginning of another round of pacing.

“Really, now?” he said, voice dripping with contempt. “I seem to recall you barging in here not that long ago, using your fists to ask about Harmony. Told you where she might be holed up, and you hit me again anyway, even though you knew I was telling the truth. I like fighting. A good brawl is actually a bit of a turn on. Getting hit for no reason? Especially when I can’t hit back? Not exactly my thing.

He tended to like pain in general, honestly, but only on his own terms. If it wasn’t a situation where he wanted it, it just hurt. It was the same as the difference between making love to Dru and what had happened between him and the Slayer. Despite being – from a purely physical standpoint, anyway – the best sex of his existence, the latter had been far from a pleasant experience.

He’d avoided thinking about the… event… as much as he could, but it flashed through his mind. The feel of her on top of him, every touch magnified to a level that was almost too much. And overshadowing the incredible pleasure was the sick, choked feeling of powerlessness. He’d lived with it, lurking in the depths where he tried to keep it, ever since he’d realized just what the Initiative had done to him.

She’d brought it roaring to the surface, the knowledge that humans could do anything they wanted to him, and trying to fight back would only make him even _more_ vulnerable. Humans weren’t happy meals on legs anymore, they were potential attackers, each and every one of them. Even Dawn could take him out if she wanted to.

“Hey, are you okay?”

The Slayer, up and about and practically in his personal space. He jerked back away from her, losing his balance in his haste and falling onto his ass. _Oh, brilliant,_ he thought in disgust at himself. That disgust didn’t keep him from scooting back at her hesitant half-step towards him.

She froze, giving him one of those deer-in-the-headlights looks. “I… um…. Look, about the Harmony thing, I’m sorry, okay? I was just really upset.”

“And you think being upset makes hitting people okay?” Granted, he kind of thought that way himself, but what was the point if the one you hit had no potential to fight back? Even Dalton could have snapped and fought back. Not exactly likely, but possible. Beating on a helpless opponent was just boring. Plus, she was meant to be a white hat.

“You’re not a –”

She stopped before she could finish the sentence, but the word hung between them. _Person_. He wasn’t a person as far as she was concerned. Couldn’t be, because if he was a person, then every vampire she had dusted had been as well.

“So,” he said into the uncomfortable silence, “why didn’t you just hit me until I stopped struggling? Why’d you try to talk me out of it?”

“Because, you idiot, I was trying to _help_ you!” She seemed surprised by the angry outburst.

“You mean you were trying to help the sprog.”

“No, I meant you,” she mumbled, looking down. “I mean, yeah, the whole stupid jumping you thing was because of the ritual, but once I had you down, I was…. I just…. I had to keep you from triggering the chip. I… didn’t want you in anymore pain, and hitting you to stop the chance of it seemed kinda counterproductive.”

She continued staring down at the ground, fidgeting slightly. He just watched her from where he sat on the crypt floor, trying to suss out what her little revelation meant. He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. Aggravating, confusing little chit. Sent him into a panic attack, then tried to help and gave him more of her blood than he’d probably needed if the aim was just to push away the dizzy spells.

“Look, Slayer, you want me to go back to your house with you? Fine, but there are bloody well going to be some rules.”

She looked at him, eyes narrowed and a stubborn set to her jaw. Slayer didn’t like the idea of being told what to do by a vampire, did she? He smirked at her.

“Oooh, somebody’s pouty.” His expression turned serious. “A lot of this isn’t your fault, but you know what, Summers? Things happen, and then you have to deal with the consequences. I’m not asking for anything unreasonable. You tell me every sodding thing you know about the ritual, and you keep me in the bloody loop when you learn more. Of the two of us, I’ve more of a right to know what’s going on than you do.”

The Slayer winced and nodded. “Yeah, that’s fair. When I know something, I’ll let you know as soon as possible.” She took a deep breath. “Mom and Dawn are probably really worried. We should get ba-”

“Not finished yet,” he interrupted. “No unprovoked hitting and no more chaining me up.” She paled at the last bit and started shaking her head. “Oh, come on, I’m not going to hurt the sprog, and I’m offering to go back with you willingly. There’s no reason to chain me up.”

“Spike, no, I can’t… I have to….” She shuddered and hugged herself. “I trust you not to hurt the baby, but I can’t trust you not to do something stupidly reckless if I’m not watching you. I won’t keep you chained up all the time, but I have to when I’m in classes, patrolling, and sleeping. The alternative….” She shuddered again and shook her head.

He narrowed his eyes at her. He didn’t know what alternative the ritual was pushing at, but he doubted it’d be particularly pleasant. Eventually, he’d ask her what it was, but not right now. Right now, he honestly didn’t want to know.

“We’ll compromise a bit on this one. No reason at all to chain me up while you’re at uni. Not gonna go out during the day ‘less the house is on bloody fire, in which case, I _need_ to be able to leave it. As for patrol, no need for chains, because I’ll be doing ‘em with you.”

“Oh, no, no, absolutely not!” Her eyes blazed at that, anger at the idea bringing color to her cheeks. He had to admit she was gorgeous when she was brassed off.

“Why not? Not some delicate little flower. I can fight demons,” he said with a growl. Oh, he understood her concerns – he wasn’t _completely_ thick – but he couldn’t go however the hell long this was going to last without violence. He needed that almost as much as he needed blood.

“You may be able to fight demons, but there’s nothing stopping them from hurting you,” she pointed out as if it was some kind of detriment.

“Yeah, so?” He shrugged off her worry. “Better getting hurt than going stark raving bonkers, innit? Need a good spot of violence or I’ll go right ‘round the bend.”

“Did you somehow miss the fact that you aren’t healing well? I can’t –”

“Should be alright once I’m back on human blood,” he interrupted. “Willy has a way to get human blood. It’s expensive – the clean stuff even more so – but he’s afraid of you, so you can talk him down in price pretty easily. Get me at least a gallon of that a day, and we can supplement with about three ounces of yours. Shouldn’t cause you any problems once you’ve recovered from what you gave today.”

She didn’t say anything right away, just started pacing and lightly biting at her lower lip. _Probably sorting out in her head what the ritual will allow her to agree to,_ he thought, watching as she walked back and forth. She was, thankfully, maintaining a comfortable amount of distance between them.

“Alright,” she finally said grudgingly. “You get kept in the loop, I’ll try not to hit you, no chains except when I’m asleep, and you get to go on patrol with me. Anything else?”

“Yeah, and this one is nonnegotiable. I want equal time with the sprog once it’s out and about –we really need to figure out how exactly that’s supposed to happen. I don’t exactly have the right plumbing for the normal way of things – and no disinvite. You didn’t bother to disinvite me even after I visited your mum and sis, so no doing it now. I deserve free access to my own kid, ‘specially if I’m the one poppin’ it out.”

She was silent again, mulling it over. There would be no compromises on this one. Staying with her family was the best route, but it wasn’t the only one.

“You can drag me back with you against my will and keep me locked up in your room again,” he said, his voice quiet and deadly calm, “but I’ll eventually get free. And that will be the last you ever see of me. You’ll never know where I’ve gotten to and if the sprog is safe or not. Don’t think your protective instinct is going to much like that idea.”

She slumped a little and sighed. “Fine, okay. I agree to the rules. Can we go now?”

“Give me half a tic.”

Spike got to his feet and started rummaging through the sarcophagus he used for storage, putting a few things into a backpack. Hair gel, his black nail varnish, a pair of jeans and a couple of t-shirts. He looked around and scooped up a few books he’d left out near his chair and put them in the bag. Then he slung it over his shoulder and raised a brow at the Slayer.

“Shall we?”

 

**…**

 

The night was quiet as they walked back to the house on Revello Drive, the only vampire she could sense in the vicinity was the one by her side. _What a day,_ Buffy thought, running a hand through her hair. Her mom had passed out before she’d even had a chance to fully wake up, they’d spent most of the day in a hospital, Riley had picked a fight with her instead of being supportive, and then the revelations about Angel and all of the stuff with Spike. She just wanted to curl up in her bed and sleep, which she wouldn’t even get to do because Spike had her bed.

_At least things can’t get any worse,_ she thought as she got to the house. The lights were all still on, which wasn’t really a surprise, nor was the unlocked door. No, the surprise was finding Willow, Xander, and Anya there when she’d only expected her mom, Dawn, and maybe Tara. Willow and Xander both looked anxious, and Buffy had the sinking sensation that it had nothing to do with Spike being set free and hunted down.

She ignored them for a moment to meet the worried looks of Tara and Dawn before focusing on her mother. “We, uh, worked things out, more or less.”

The fact that her mom’s concern didn’t ease until she’d gotten a nod of confirmation from Spike stung, but was completely understandable given the circumstances. Buffy sighed and turned her attention to Willow.

“Okay, what’s going on?” she asked, knowing whatever it was had to be all her fault for tempting fate in her thoughts earlier.

“We, we were patrolling for you, and –”

“Some of Riley’s old buddies showed up.” Xander interrupted the redhead. He shot a quick glance at Spike. “Don’t worry, they aren’t here to do anything Initiative-y. They’ve apparently been trying for weeks to get Riley to get an operation to fix some of the things Walsh did to them all. His heart can’t take being superman.”

“He punched Graham and took off running,” Willow added. She handed Buffy a scrap of paper. “This is the address where we can find the doctor once we find Riley. He could die if we don’t get to him in time.”

Buffy took the paper and stared blankly at it. Riley’s heart couldn’t…? She felt numb. This was just too much. All of the things going on, and now her boyfriend was having trouble with his heart? He could die? She didn’t even know where to look.

Beside her, Spike sighed in a sort of resigned exasperation. “Where’d you lot lose sight of Captain Cardboard? If he hasn’t run about all willy nilly, I should be able to track him.”

She blinked at him in incomprehension for a moment. Track? Spike could track Riley? “You can…? How?”

He raised a brow at her. “Can smell him, can’t I?” He put his bag of belongings on the floor before turning back towards the door. “You coming, then?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.

Buffy swallowed and nodded. “Yeah.” Then she followed him out into the night.

Once they got to the cemetery Willow had indicated, Spike stopped to close his eyes and sniff the air deeply. That was always so creepy, watching something that looked so human doing something so like an animal.

“This way,” he said before leading her through the tombstones.

They walked in silence for several minutes – stopping occasionally for Spike to sniff around again – before Buffy started getting a feeling for where they were heading. It wasn’t long at all before they reached the Initiative caves. She stared into the darkness and suddenly punched the rock with a frustrated scream.

“You okay, Slayer?” Spike asked, sounding a little uncomfortable about asking.

“No, I’m not okay,” she growled. She could feel tears prickling at the back of her eyes, but she forced them back. Why was this all happening at once? “I didn’t bring a flashlight.”

Spike blinked at her and did that little head tilt thing of his. She looked away, unnerved by the understanding in his eyes. He always had been good at seeing into her. He sighed, and she felt a hesitant touch on her hand. He withdrew, then cursed softly under his breath before grabbing her hand more firmly.

“Come on, now. I can see well enough in this,” he said gruffly.

She followed him, passively letting him hold her hand. She didn’t like how he’d been reacting to her. He’d said she wasn’t a monster, that he didn’t blame her for what the ritual had made her do, but he didn’t want her touching him or even getting too close. She could understand it, but still….

“I’m not going to do anything to you,” she said quietly.

“I sodding well _know_ that, don’t I?” he spat out. Then he stopped so suddenly that Buffy ran into him, making him tense and jerk away. He cursed and grabbed her hand again. “I smell blood. Not a lot, but we should prob’ly cut the chit-chat and find your boy.”

They continued through the caves, Buffy hearing a knocking noise before she saw a light source. Riley was there, punching into the wall over and over again. He looked terrible – gleaming with sweat and obviously tired – in the dim glow of the flashlight he’d set on the floor. His knuckles were covered in blood. She pulled away from Spike and rushed to her boyfriend’s side.

“You know, this doesn’t even hurt,” he said conversationally. He didn’t even bother to look at her.

“You’re bleeding,” she quietly pointed out, not sure of what else to say.

She didn’t understand what was going on with him. Xander had said they’d been trying to get Riley to see a doctor for weeks. He’d known that there was something wrong with his heart, but he hadn’t said anything to her.

“Don’t feel a thing,” he said, finally looking at her. Then he noticed Spike and glared.  “What’s he doing here?”

“He helped me find you. Riley, we need to get you to the doctor so they can fix you. Now.”

“The one from the government, you mean? Like the ones who did this to me in the first place?” His voice was bitter as he turned away from her. “And did you ever think that maybe I don’t want to be fixed? I'm more powerful than I've ever been, Buffy. Most people would kill to feel this way.”

“Yeah, and this feeling is _going_ to kill you. Riley, your body was not built for this kind of strength –”

“I can handle it,” he bit out harshly, interrupting as he stalked past her.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she demanded, reaching out to grab his arm. God, what was it going to take to convince him? Why was he doing this? “Why don’t you want the doctor to fix you?”

“I go back... let the government get whimsical with my innards again.... They could do anything that…. Best-case scenario, they turn me into Joe Normal, just...” he trailed off in disgust. “Just another guy.”

She’d been pissed at Riley off and on ever since the ritual, but this…. Good god, was she mad. She felt like the rage was going to melt her into a puddle. He didn’t want to get a life-saving operation because he didn’t want to be _normal_? There had been times when she thought she’d have cheerfully killed someone’s kindly old granny if it meant she could be normal.

“That’s not enough for you?” she asked, keeping a tight rein on her anger.

“No, it’s not enough for _you_!” he spat at her, his fists clenching as if he was fighting not to use them. His voice took on a bitter tone as he continued. “Your last boyfriend wasn’t exactly a civilian. I go back to being normal, and I won’t be strong enough for you.”

“Do you think that I spent the last year with you because you had super powers? If that's what I wanted, then I'd be dating Spike.” She flung her hand out towards the vampire who had been quietly watching them the entire time, belatedly realizing – even before Spike’s muttered, “you _do_ owe me dinner and a movie after all that’s happened,” – that that might not have been the best argument to use with Riley considering the circumstances.

“No, instead you’re just having a child with him,” Riley said with a bitter smile.

“Riley,” she whispered. She could feel it crumbling away. She’d tried so hard, and now it was all falling apart. “I’m sorry.”

She pulled her arm back and punched him, hitting him with just enough force to knock him unconscious without causing too much harm. She didn’t know if she’d be able to save their relationship, but she was damn well going to save his life.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue and scenes taken from the episode “No Place Like Home”

Buffy woke to the sound of her alarm clock, confused for a moment about why it was going off. _It’s the weekend,_ she thought blearily, _why do I need to be up?_ The horrible noise stopped suddenly in mid-blare, no doubt turned off by the vampire in her bed. Her sleep fogged mind was so grateful, she actually contemplated kissing Spike for a second. _Oh, no, no, no. Bad Buffy. That way lies much of the badness. Freaked out vampire is not something anyone needs to deal with right now. Particularly not the vampire._

He’d been pretty irritable during the four days since he’d come back to the house with her. She didn’t know if it was due to the general situation, the fact that last night had been the first time she’d taken him with her on patrol – he’d grudgingly agreed with her insistence that he be on human blood for a few days before fighting anything – pregnancy stuff, or just Spike being Spike.

According to what she’d read, women could start getting mood swings before they even missed their period. _It hasn’t even been a full week yet, but that website Willow found can’t even tell us for sure how long this is going to last._ The site was more of a “what to expect when you’re expecting a magical ritual baby” kind of thing than actual information about the ritual itself. All it had really said about hybrid babies was that they’d be born somewhere between the gestation times for the species involved.

“You getting up or not, Slayer?” Spike asked, sounding – _thank god_ – like he was in a relatively good mood. Whatever was to blame for the moodiness, last night’s “spot of violence” seemed to have mellowed him out.

Was she getting up? _Yeah,_ she decided, finally remembering why she’d set the alarm. _I wanna make Mom a nice breakfast, and then I’ve got to be there for Giles’s shop opening._ She needed to show him the glowy orb thing the night watchman had given her and Spike last night. _And find out if those books he ordered about the ritual arrived._

Things with Spike may have been all tangled and confusing, but he’d been right about a lot of things. One of those being that he had a right to know what was going on. They already had a pretty good idea of what the ritual had done to Buffy herself – pumped up aggression and uncontrollable urges when it came to keeping the baby safe – but they didn’t really know everything it had done to Spike. Person or not, he was at least a sentient being, and he deserved to know what was going on in his own body.

She shook her head, not wanting to think about things too deeply right now, and hauled herself out of her surprisingly cozy floor nest, fishing the key to Spike’s restraints out from under her pillow. He pretended to ignore her – eyes fixed firmly on the book he’d been reading while she slept – as she set the key on the nightstand next to the candle he’d been using as a light source. She pretended to ignore the way he tensed slightly at her nearness.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye as he picked up the key and unlocked the metal cuff. “I’ve been here without causing trouble for four days, Slayer. Kinky as it is, the chains are getting old. You sure we can’t just lay off the things entirely?”

“No!” she snapped, turning away from him and gathering her clothes with shaking hands. She had to get out of the room. Get away from him and the urge to make it so they didn’t need the restraints.

“Why the bloody hell not?” he asked, irritation and frustration in his voice. She couldn’t answer, could only shake her head mutely and paw through her clothes. Where was that shirt she’d intended to wear today? “What’s going on in that head of yours, has you thinkin’ this is best?”

He picked up the cuff and shook it, making the chain rattle. Buffy grit her teeth at the sound and closed her eyes. It’d be so easy. Just lunge at him, flip him over, and apply enough pressure to his lower back to snap his spine. He’d be paralyzed from the waist down. Again.

She opened her eyes and turned to look at him. He deserved to know everything about the ritual, even the things it was doing to her.

“I can’t… I can’t control this very well, Spike. It’s not like being possessed or anything, but….” She made a useless grabbing gesture with the hand not holding her clothing, trying to find the words to explain. “It’s sort of like being drugged. There are these thoughts and feelings, and they come from inside of me, but I wouldn’t have them if not for the effects of the ritual. It’s like I took something, and it opened up… stuff… inside of me. I _have_ to keep you chained up while I sleep. Otherwise… otherwise I’m going to end up putting you in a wheelchair again. I keep thinking about it, and about how easy it would be.”

He stared at her for a long, silent moment, his normally expressive features still and unreadable. “Feelin’ things you don’t wanna feel and doin’ things you don’t wanna do, hmm?” A tight, bitter smile flashed across his face. “Can relate to that.”

She wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that, though he could be talking about his reaction to her ever since they’d gotten into this mess. He obviously didn’t want to be afraid of her or to jerk away when she got too close. It felt deeper than that, though. Could he be talking about the impulse to feed on humans and the fact that he couldn’t? What would that be like, she wondered, to want to eat what you had once been? Or to be unable to feed on your natural prey? She took a step towards him, being careful to stay outside the range that seemed to make him uncomfortable. Despite that, he shot off the bed in a blur of motion, eyeing her warily from the corner of the room.

“That little revelation about wantin’ to paralyze me? Not exactly filling me with the warm and fuzzies at the thought of you getting close,” he said quietly.

“I don’t want to do it!” she yelled. “Or... well, I don’t _want_ to want to. The thought disgusts me, but I can’t make it go away! And every time you….”

“What? Every time I do _what_ , Slayer?” he asked harshly, his tone not doing much to disguise his fear.

She swallowed hard, feeling tears threaten. Why was she getting like this? She didn’t even _like_ Spike. Why was it bothering her that he was afraid of her? She was the Vampire Slayer. Vampires were _supposed_ to be afraid of her. _But not like this,_ she thought. _They should be afraid that I’m going to kill them, not assault them._

“Every time you do something reckless or, or _Spike-ish_ , that makes me worry about your safety. I feel like I can’t trust you, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

Spike sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “Not deliberately trying to make things harder on you, Slayer. You do what you need to do. If that means chaining me up while you snore away like a diseased walrus, go ahead.”

“I do not –”

“You had your alarm set for a reason, didn’t you?” he asked, somehow managing to look completely innocent as he interrupted her indignant rant.

She threw her arms ups in the air in exasperation and grabbed up her clothes before stomping off to the bathroom for a quick wash up. As she splashed water on her face, she had to admit to herself that Spike riling her up like that had actually made her feel better. Had that actually been his plan? _Such a weird vampire._

She quickly changed out of her pajamas and headed down the stairs. Spike was already in the kitchen, sitting at the island and watching with surprised amusement while Dawn – the tip of her tongue poking out in concentration – used a thermometer to check the temperature of the blood she was heating in a double boiler. The fourteen-year-old had been on her best behavior lately, wanting to impress their undead houseguest with how mature and sophisticated she could be.

“Ninety-eight-point-seven,” Dawn announced happily, turning off the stove and pouring the blood into a mug. “That’s pretty close, and it doesn’t have that microwave-y aftertaste.”

“Much appreciated, Bit,” Spike said, ruffling her hair as he accepted the mug.

He was very carefully not looking at Buffy. She tried to do the same, but couldn’t help stealing little glances as she got out what she’d need for Mom’s breakfast. His hands were shaking slightly. Was that because of what she’d told him upstairs, or did he need more blood? She took a deep breath and forced her thoughts away from the vampire.

He was okay for now. They still had two gallons of human blood in the fridge, guaranteed to be willingly donated from healthy college students wanting a few extra bucks. Willy had wanted to charge one-hundred bucks for each gallon, but she’d threatened him down to twenty, which was apparently twenty dollars less than what he paid. Buffy didn’t really care.

 _Mom, I need to do something special for Mom,_ she thought, starting up the bacon and grabbing a bowl to mix the eggs in. She hated that her mother was sick. Moms were supposed to be immune to anything beyond a cold or the flu. They were supposed to be strong and ready to support you at any time, not sick. Would the baby think that way about her?

She dropped the egg she was holding, the fact that she was going to be a mother – or was it father? It was all so confusing – hitting her again. She didn’t exactly forget, but it was like her mind couldn’t deal with the strangeness of the whole situation and shunted aside the full implications from time to time.

“What are you doing?” Dawn asked, managing to catch the egg just before it hit the ground.

Buffy blinked at her. “I’m just…. Mom’s not feeling well, so I’m making her a, a good nutritious breakfast.”

“I’ve got this; you take care of the bacon. We’ll work together, okay?” Dawn flashed her a slightly wobbly smile. She didn’t like that Mom was sick either. “And get yourself something to eat. You’ve been running on fumes.”

Buffy smiled back and shook her head at her sister’s tone. She did as she suggested, though, getting out the cottage cheese and opening up a can of pineapple chunks before checking on the bacon. She flipped it, then grabbed a bowl to fill with her own breakfast. The cottage cheese was right where she’d left it, but the can of pineapples was gone.

Her first instinct was to blame Dawn, but the girl was busily whisking away at the eggs. That left…. _Oh, great, he’s gone from “Buffy terrifies the crap out of me” to “I want to annoy Buffy as much as possible,”_ she thought grumpily as she watched Spike eat her pineapple chunks. She reached for the can only to freeze when Spike actually _growled_ at her and pulled it closer.

 _Oka-ay, that so does not seem like an “annoy the hell out of Buffy” reaction._ Despite being a vampire, Spike had never really been all _grr! Arr!_ She could practically hear her mother’s voice in her head, saying, _we don’t take food from growly pregnant people who might be far enough along to have weird food cravings._

She grudgingly decided the Mom-Voice was right, and that Spike was totally allowed to steal her food for now. At least he hadn’t flinched away from her. He didn’t do it as much when Dawn or Mom were around, as if he felt safer with them as a buffer. She sighed and got back to making breakfast.

Working together, she and Dawn were able to get everything ready and neatly on a tray just as their mom made her way downstairs and into the kitchen in her bathrobe. It ruined Buffy’s plans to provide breakfast in bed, but her mother’s smile chased away her disappointment.

“Oh, check out the ‘Pamper Mom Platter.’ Did you two work together on this?” Mom asked with another smile as she took a seat at the island.

“I made the eggs,” Dawn announced while Buffy set the tray down in front of their mother. “Buffy made the bacon and toast.”

“Then I made more toast, because Spike snagged the first two slices,” Buffy muttered with a glance at the vampire. He ignored her, focusing on his ill-gotten, pineapple covered gains.

She shook her head and put more bread in the toaster, figuring she might as well make some for herself and Dawn. Maybe it was better this way than giving her mom breakfast in bed. They could all sit and eat together.

She turned back towards her family just in time to see Mom eye the food and then both of her daughters. “So, neither one of you is failing, under indictment, or preg-” She stopped with an embarrassed blush just as Spike made a sound somewhere between a snort of amusement and a grunt of irritation.

“Can’t speak for the little bit, but you don’t have to worry about that last with the older one. She’s been too busy getting _other_ people pregnant.”

“I’m sorry, Spike,” Mom said with absolute sincerity. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“No worries, Joyce. Bit of a peculiar situation, innit? And with you sick and all….” He trailed off with a shrug and popped another pineapple chunk into his mouth.

Buffy turned back towards the toaster, fighting to keep her composure. She knew Spike liked her mom and tended to be polite to her, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that his attitude was because there was something seriously, horribly wrong with Mom.

 _She’s okay. She’s going to be okay._ She repeated those words in her head like a mantra, desperately willing them to be true.

 

**…**

 

Spike paced back and forth across the living room. He was tired and knew he should head upstairs for a bit of kip, but he was too unsettled. He had been restless and fidgety for days now. Going on patrol with the Slayer had helped some, but her admission earlier that morning had rattled him enough to undo whatever good it had done. Had been a bit of a relief to finally know _why_ she was all into the bondage, but still unnerving.

She was gone now, off with little sis to visit the Watcher while he stayed behind with their sickly mum. She smelled good, Joyce did. Like easy prey. Like the Bit, she’d been off the menu even before the chip, but that hadn’t magically made her smell less like food.

 _All comes down to self-control, don’t it?_ he thought. The Slayer and her little Scoobies would laugh at the very idea, but - though he didn’t always choose to exercise it - he’d always had self-control in spades, even as a weak, mousy little human. God, how he’d wanted to punch every one of those smug bastards who’d constantly mocked him.

And Cecily…. He’d been in love with her, but had never acted on it beyond his admission after his poetry had been read. It had been agony, watching her, but never touching, never trying to take what he wished could be his. The urge to do _something_ , anything, to make her his had been almost as strong as his desire to fall into a wretched heap of tears at his mother’s feet and beg her to not be sick, plead with her to stay with him instead of dying.

He shuddered and forced his thoughts away from his mum. He needed to be thinking about the Slayer and how to help her with her impulses. He didn’t care about how they were affecting her – evil, wasn’t he? Of course he didn’t care – but he couldn’t live like this. Practically a prisoner with very little control over his own self, despite the rules he’d set up.

He didn’t know if the Slayer had fully understood him earlier, but he knew all about impulses. Poor little Slayer. Had to be somewhat like being a fledge, all these new things you felt compelled to do, with only whatever control you’d started with to deal with them. Even with one-hundred-and-twenty years behind him and the threat of chip-induced punishment, the urge to sink his fangs into someone’s throat and pull their life into himself – a warm glowy feeling at his core that he could curl around like a contented pussycat – was almost impossible to control.

The human blood in the fridge helped, but didn’t make the craving for a kill go away. There was something about sinking fangs into a human that was like sliding into a wet and ready woman instead of just wanking with your own hand. It was intimate and sensual when done right and a feeling of incredible power, holding someone’s life in your hands. God, he missed it.

He took a deep breath, Joyce’s scent practically a taste in his mouth, like candy on his tongue. He really, really wanted to eat her. Rip open her throat and dip pineapple chunks into-

The bloodlust he could deal with. He’d been dealing with it to a certain extent ever since he’d become a vampire, but the sudden need for pineapples hit him like a ton of bricks. It was worse than when the Slayer had opened up a can earlier, the smell driving him crazy with desire. He swallowed back a mouthful of saliva. What the bloody hell was _wrong_ with him? He was a vampire; he should not be _drooling_ over sodding pineapple chunks.

With a frustrated growl, he darted into the kitchen, ignoring Joyce’s worried call of his name as he pulled a can out of the pantry. He struggled not to vamp out and bite it open. _Use the bloody can opener. Juice will stain the leather._ He got it open, and all was temporarily right with the world.

Joyce gave him a knowing look as he went back to the living room and sat beside her on the couch. “Pineapples, huh? With Buffy it was liverwurst. Couldn’t get enough of the stuff. Dawn was more of a general craving for spicy –” She was cut off by her own sudden moan as she clutched her head in pain.

“Joyce?” Spike called out in alarm, watching her features twist up in agony. “What do you need, love? What will make the pain go away?”

“I’m fine. Just need… prescription…,” she panted out. “When Buffy gets –”

“Bugger that,” Spike snarled, interrupting her and jumping to his feet, half-eaten can of pineapples forgotten.

He dug through her purse until he found the slip of paper that would get her the medicine. Then he thundered up the stairs to grab a blanket, ignoring her protests. He was bloody well going to go and get what she needed. In part because he liked her and didn’t want her in pain, but also because he suddenly couldn’t stand being in the Slayer-scented house for one more sodding second longer than necessary.

He may have laid down some rules that were grudgingly being followed, but that didn’t give him any true control in this situation. Not really. He needed to feel the burn on his skin as the sun tried to get to him through the blanket. Needed it almost as much as blood or violence. Or, apparently, as much as bloody pineapples. The sting of it would be proof that _he_ was in control, that he had chosen to do something dangerous, sod the consequences.

The Slayer had her impulses, and if she couldn’t manage to control them, he’d deal with it. He’d gone through being paralyzed before. He could sodding well do it again if need be. He would _not_ be a prisoner, cooped up because of something someone else had done to him while under the effects of a ritual performed by careless wankers.

He practically flew back down the stairs, pausing only long enough to grab his can of pineapples before throwing the blanket over himself and dashing out into the light. He took back a small amount of control by giving it up and letting his impulses guide him as he hurried towards the nearest sewer entrance.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue taken from the episode “No Place Like Home”.

_I should have left Dawn at home,_ Buffy fumed as she hurried back after only half-an-hour away, her little sister struggling to keep up with her. Okay, things hadn’t exactly been going great with Riley – especially not after she’d knocked him out and taken him to the doctor – but she’d been desperately trying to hold on to the broken pieces of their crumbling relationship.

 _And Dawn’s little comment about me planning to patrol with Spike tonight made more of those pieces trickle through my fingers,_ she thought bleakly. Part of her knew that there was no saving it. It was a dying thing that should just be put out of its misery. The rest of her, though, fiercely held on. She could do this. She could be a good girlfriend. If she was just…just _better_ somehow, Riley wouldn’t stop loving her. She wouldn’t do whatever it was that drove her dad and Angel away.

Spike’s words from when she’d found him in the crypt flickered through her mind. Was he right? Had they left because of problems within themselves rather than something wrong with her? If Riley left…. No, if Riley left, it actually _would_ be her fault. She made him feel weak and useless and like less of a man. _That’s me,_ she thought bitterly. _Buffy Anne Summers, the Chosen One. I look like a woman, but I’m apparently so manly that I make my boyfriend feel like a little girl and can impregnate male vampires._

She shook off her thoughts and tried to force a cheerful expression on her face as she got to the house. It was hard to stay positive when she knew there was something so wrong with her mom. Anyone who could do that had to be incredibly strong. She wasn’t sure if she had that kind of strength. But she was going to try. That resolve temporarily flew right out the window when she went inside and saw her mother sprawled across the couch, in obvious agony.

“Mom!” She rushed into the living room.

“What is it, what’s wrong?” Dawn asked, coming in behind her. Her voice was high and panicky.

“I don’t know, but we’re taking her to the hospital,” Buffy said, looking around for her mom’s purse. She wasn’t a very good driver and didn’t actually have a license, but Mom couldn’t possibly drive in this condition. “They’ll, they’ll fix her right up, Dawnie. You’ll see.”

“No, Buffy, I’m okay,” Mom protested weakly. “I just… just need my prescription. A…friend is picking it up. You, you go back out and spend time with your friends. Oh, thank you, Dawn.”

The last was said as Dawn brought their mom a glass of water before sitting at her feet and gazing up at her worriedly. Buffy forced out a reassuring smile.

“It’s okay, Mom. Dawn and I will stay right here with you until your friend brings your prescription.” Buffy frowned in sudden irritation. “I can’t believe Spike just left you down here alone in pain.”

Even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t entirely fair. It was morning, and he had been tired a lot lately. Still, though, you’d think that ooky smelling thing he had would have picked up pain scent or something from her mom. Her mom, who was looking anxious rather than relieved at the thought of her daughters sitting with her. Who had tried to get her to go back out. Hot rage and cold fear radiated through her in queasy waves as she abruptly stood up.

“I’m not going to break his spine,” she said brightly. “No, I’m just going to break his legs and then chain him up to the bed for the rest of his worthless unlife!”

 _Which will only be as long as I freakin’ need him,_ she thought darkly, ignoring the really disturbing thought of how sexy Spike would look spread out on her bed with both wrists and ankles bound. Spike was _not_ sexy. He was an evil, soulless vampire.

“Buffy, don’t,” Mom called out softly, struggling to her feet as Buffy headed towards the door. “He was just trying to help.”

Dawn bolted off the floor at that point and planted herself between her sister and the door. “You’re going to hurt Spike for doing something for Mom?” she asked incredulously. “That’s seriously messed up. Why exactly is it that we don’t have _you_ chained up? You’re the one who’s acting all psycho.”

Buffy grabbed Dawn by the shoulders and shoved her to the ground. She winced internally at the girl’s startled cry of pain, but it didn’t stop her from getting to the front door.

“Buffy.”

She tensed at the sound of her mom’s voice, waiting for the lecture on her horrible behavior. _I’m sorry, Mom,_ she thought in misery. She’d hurt her sister and upset her mother, all because that bleached _idiot_ had been too stupid to stay put. _No, I’m the idiot. I never should have expected him to follow the rules, even though_ he’s _the one who came up with them._

Her mother’s following words weren’t the accusatory lecture she’d expected. “In normal human pregnancies, it isn’t good for the baby if the mother is under too much stress. When he isn’t out with you, Spike’s cooped up in this house, which is full of your things and scent even when you aren’t here. Given the circumstances, I imagine that’s… very stressful.”

Her shoulders slumped with relief as some of the rage melted away. She’d never really considered that. That her smell being everywhere might be stressing Spike out which could harm the baby. She could maybe spray some air freshener around, but she couldn’t really stop herself from producing scent. _Maybe I could borrow some of Xander’s smelly after work clothes,_ she thought dubiously.

He’d been by a couple times to play video games with Spike, and they’d actually been fairly civil to each other. Maybe… maybe Spike could stay with Xander for a while. A fierce tide of negation welled up at that idea. No, no, no. That wasn’t safe. Anything could get into Xander’s apartment.

Buffy took a deep breath and closed her eyes before opening them again and looking towards her mother. She was on the floor with Dawn, looking tired and in a lot of pain.

“Thanks, Mom,” she said quietly. She glanced at her sister’s tear-streaked, angry face. “I’m sorry, Dawn. I’ll… I’ll try not to hurt him. I promise.”

Then she was out the door and heading towards the hospital. She’d figure something out. Some way to keep Spike under control without causing him too much stress. _Maybe I’ll get him a fresh pineapple every day that he doesn’t cause me problems,_ she thought wryly, remembering the way he’d growled at her earlier. Fresh had to be better than canned, right? For now, though, she needed to find her vampire and bring him home.

 

**...**

 

She wasn’t going to kill him. No, no, killing would be bad. It would kill the baby, too. Couldn’t have that. She wouldn’t even hurt him. She’d just fill the bathtub up with packing peanuts, bind him up with bubble wrap, and stick him in it. She’d run chains along the top to keep him pinned in. She’d be nice, though. His arms would be free and she’d move the TV and some books into the bathroom. He’d be able to read and play video games and feed himself when she brought him blood and people food. And if he started feeling stressed, he could just pop some of the bubble wrap.

 _It’s a wonderful idea,_ Buffy thought, gritting her teeth and digging her nails into her palms as she walked out of the pharmacy area of the hospital. She wished she had some bubble wrap to pop. Spike wasn’t there, and no one had seen him yet.

She desperately glanced around for any hint of him and almost walked into a gurney being pushed by a three-man team. Someone who looked vaguely familiar stopped her before she could crash into it.

“Hey there. Buffy, isn’t it?” he asked with a smile.

“Um…?” She looked at him blankly, completely unable to remember his name though she had finally placed him as someone who had been there when they’d brought her mother in. He’d lent Dawn his stethoscope.

“Ben. But you can call me ‘Man-Nurse’ like everyone el – whoa!”

He turned back to the gurney as the man on it started convulsing violently. Ben tried to hold him down, but even all of his strength wasn’t enough to stop the trashing.

“I don’t belong here!” the patient yelled. “I have important instructions! Fascists!”

“Okay, now you’re hurting the nice intern who’s here to help you,” Ben said to the obviously crazy man. He looked at one of the others helping with him. “I need nine ccs of phenobarbital in this guy now.”

 _Poor guy,_ Buffy thought, deciding suddenly to help. Using her slayer-strength, she easily held the patient down, still glancing around for any sign of Spike. _Where is he?_ She could still feel the excessive protectiveness at the thought of the baby, so that meant he wasn’t all dusty, right?

“Or not,” Ben said, surprise in his voice and an amazed expression. “Let’s strap him.” He looked down at the patient and smiled reassuringly. “For your own good, promise.” His gaze went to Buffy. “You know, not to be rampantly sexist in the workplace, but you have some serious muscles for a girl.”

Buffy stared at him for a moment, then down at the patient before jerking away. “I… um….”

She scrambled to think of a way to explain her display of strength. She was usually better about things like that, but she was distracted by her stupid missing vampire and her mom being sick.

“Radioactive spider bite?” Ben suggested blandly.

“How’d you guess?” she asked, relieved that he seemed to just be going with it.

“I’m a doctor,” he said solemnly, as if that explained everything. His eyes sparkled slightly with amusement. “Well, almost.”

Before Buffy could respond, the man on the gurney grabbed her arm. She stared down at him, frowning as she suddenly recognized him. It was the night watchman who had given her the glowing orb thingy. What had happened to him?

“They’re coming at you,” he said with a crazed intensity. “Don’t think you’re above it, missy. They come through the family! They get to your family!”

“My family?” she asked numbly. Something was trying to get to her through her family? _Mom… someone’s making Mom sick!_ “What do you mean?”

Instead of answering, he just let go of her arm. Before she could demand more information, she heard a familiar, accented voice.

“What? No, ‘m fine. Not here for me, just need to pick up a prescription.”

“Sir, I really think you need to see a doctor.”

Buffy whirled around to see a worried looking receptionist talking to Spike. The vampire was standing outside of the direct sunlight with a blanket tucked under his arm. He’d clearly been punched in the face several times, was standing like his ribs hurt, and had blood trickling down the side of his face from a nasty head wound.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” Buffy snapped, stalking towards him furiously. “You’re supposed to be at home! Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

He backed away in alarm as she approached. At first, she thought the slight tremors running through him were from fear – and some of it could have been – but then she realized he was shivering. He usually kept the warming amulet tucked under his shirt, but she should have been able to see the cord around his neck. It wasn’t there. Stupid vampire. He’d let himself get hurt and cold. Did he just not care if he lived or died?

A horrible thought occurred to her. Was he suicidal? Had everything she’d done to him made him just not want to continue going on?

The receptionist was suddenly between her and Spike, a determined look on her face. “If you aren’t here to see a doctor, you need to leave.”

Buffy stared at her in confusion for a moment until it suddenly occurred to her what this must seem like. Spike was injured and she was yelling at him for being at a hospital instead of home. _Oh god, they must think I did this,_ she thought in dismay, glancing around. There weren’t many people there, but the few who had noticed her seemed uncomfortable and some a little angry.

“No, you don’t understand. He wouldn’t be hurt if he hadn’t left,” she babbled, the words popping out before she had a chance to think them through. She needed to not say words. Words and Buffy were unmixy things.

“Sandra, let me handle this,” Ben said, laying a gentle hand on Buffy’s shoulder. “You two come with me.”

He snagged Spike by the wrist as he carefully pushed Buffy forward, a surprised expression on his face as he rested his thumb along the other man’s pulse point. _Oh, crap,_ Buffy thought with a sinking feeling. She was going to have a lot to explain, wasn’t she?

 

**…**

 

 _Vampire_ , Ben thought immediately at the lack of a pulse. A very cold and clearly traumatized vampire. He didn’t know if Buffy was responsible for the current wounds, but she’d clearly done _something_ to him at some point. When she’d approached, the peroxide blond’s pupils had dilated and his body language had become closed off and protective as he’d backed away from her. Yeah, the guy was a vampire, but as someone who shared his own body with a demented hellgod, he tried not be too judgmental.

Besides, not all vampires killed humans. Considering there was a good chance that Buffy was the vampire slayer and this particular vampire seemed to live with her, Ben felt safe enough in assuming he was one of the ones who didn’t kill. Maybe someone she’d picked up from a suck house to be her pet. She didn’t really seem like the type to do something like that, but he knew stress and worry could make people do strange things.

The usual protocol for a situation like this would be to get the apparent victim alone and ask if he felt safe at home. Ben didn’t see any reason to deviate from that. The vampire was injured and obviously wary of the girl, even though they didn’t seem to have the normal Slayer/vampire dynamic.

“Wait here,” he told Buffy once they reached the locker room. It was between shifts, so it seemed like the best place at the moment for a private conversation.

“What? No! I have to –” Her face was white and pinched with anxiety, her hazel eyes huge. She looked like she might pass out or vomit. Poor girl.

“You have to stay out here,” he interrupted gently. “This won’t take long.”

He pushed the vampire in ahead of him and closed the door.

“So, is this when you stake me, or just pull out the dolly and have me show you where the nasty li’l girl touched me?” the other man asked dryly. With Buffy on the other side of the door, he seemed more at ease, but there was still a tension and watchfulness.

“I don’t think staking is necessary, or the Slayer would have done it by now,” Ben said.

The blond raised a brow at that. “Sussed out what she is, did you?”

“She has superpowers and hangs out with a vampire. If you have a working knowledge of the demon world, it’s not too hard to put two and two together.” Ben shrugged. “Anyway, I’m Ben, and I’m supposed to ask if you feel safe at home.”

“Spike, and yeah, I feel abso-bloody-lutely peachy bein’ stuck in the Slayer’s house. Thanks ever so for asking.” He shivered and hugged himself, like he was trying to warm up. “As amusing as it would be to see the Slayer hauled off for her violent tendencies, she didn’t actually do all this.” Spike reached up to touch the drying blood on his face, grimacing in distaste at the stickiness as he muttered, “This time, anyway.”

Ben walked over to the sink along one wall and wet several paper towels, mulling over the situation. He believed Spike about his current injuries being caused by something other than Buffy, though she’d apparently hurt him at other times. He sounded more annoyed by that fact than anything, which didn’t fit the very obvious fear Ben had seen in him in the lobby. Something strange was going on.

 _I’ve done what I’m supposed to,_ he thought as he wrung out the paper towels and handed them to Spike. He could truthfully tell his superiors that he’d followed protocol and gotten things taken care of. _Now I just have to decide if I want to get more involved in this or leave it be._

“Thanks, mate.”

“No problem. If it wasn’t the Slayer, what happened?” Ben asked.

“Had a bit of a run in with some demons in the sewer. Right nice little fight and wouldn’t have been a big deal if I wasn’t on my way to hospital to pick up the Slayer’s mum’s prescription.” He sounded disgruntled as he cleaned the blood off of himself.

 _Curiouser and curiouser._ The Slayer apparently had a vampire pet living in her home who wasn’t exactly happy about it, but wasn’t trying to escape either. He was afraid of her, but not because of the times she’d hit him. The Slayer herself seemed both angry and worried. Ben made a decision. This situation had piqued his curiosity, and he always had liked helping people.

“I’ll get Mrs. Summers’s prescription,” he offered. “Do you want me to take Buffy with me, or let her in here?”

Spike tilted his head to the side and studied him for a long moment before sighing and pulling a slightly crumpled prescription and twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket and handing them over. “Best let her in. We’ve some things to hash out, and I imagine it’ll go better for me in a relatively public place. Way she’s been since the bloody ritual, I’m surprised she hasn’t barged in yet.”

“Is this ritual why you were colder than you should have been when I checked for your pulse?” He’d been wondering about that. Vampires didn’t produce body heat, but that didn’t mean they were supposed to feel like ice cubes unless the ambient temperature was freezing.

“Um, yeah, actually.” Spike gave him a thoughtful look. “Don’t s’pose there’s an electric blanket I could use lying about, is there?”

“Have a seat,” Ben said, inclining his head towards a small table with a couple of chairs around it.

He popped out of the locker room just long enough to grab a blanket from one of the warming ovens, his thoughts whirling. What kind of ritual could change the behavior patterns of someone like the Slayer and drain heat from a vampire? None that he knew of, but then, most of the rituals he really knew much about had to do with Glory and cleaning up her messes. If she didn’t stop being so active soon, he was going to have to use one of those rituals to summon the Queller demon to take care of the poor bastards she’d mind sucked.

 _If I want to know anything about this ritual he mentioned, I’ll have to ask,_ he decided as he gave the blanket to the sitting vampire. But that could wait. For now, he was going to go get Mrs. Summers’s prescription filled.

Buffy darted in the instant he opened the door, mumbling a hurried, “sorry” as she roughly brushed past him on her way to her vampire. She stopped a careful distance from him, twitching and fidgeting like she wanted to get closer and run her hands over him to check the full extent of his injuries but didn’t quite dare.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” she asked harshly, her words becoming faint as the door closed behind Ben. “Did you… what I sai-… -orning?”

He hurried to the pharmacy to get the prescription in but didn’t wait around for it to be filled. Instead, he headed back to the locker room, listening in just outside the door. He felt vaguely guilty eavesdropping on them, but what he learned could ultimately help him help them.

“…and where the hell is your amulet?” Buffy asked, sounding near hysterics.

“Lost it when I got into a bit of a scuffle on the way here. Figured I’d get your mum’s meds and give a good butcher’s around the area on the way back.”

“Butchers? There are butcher shops in the sewers? What does that –” The Slayer sounded confused, and Ben was right there with her. Had the vampire gotten a concussion or something?

“What? No. Butcher’s hook, rhymes with....” There was a frustrated sigh, and Ben could almost hear Spike rolling his eyes as he muttered something that sounded like “bloody Americans” before continuing on. “I was gonna look around for it on the way back, but you turned up here and everything went all sixes and sevens, didn’t it? I thought –”

“You thought what? That it’d be fun to try doing something behind my back?”

There was a scraping sound, like a chair being pushed along the floor. “Not every bloody thing I do has to do with you!” Spike yelled. “News flash, Slayer, the world doesn’t revolve around you!”

“Sit back down and pick that up! You need the blanket or you’ll get too cold. That isn’t good for you or the baby.”

“Hey! You stay on your side of the room and keep your hands to yourself.”

“Damn it, Spike, I’m not going to _do_ anything to you! It only happened before because the ritual made me do it. It’s not going to happen again just because you happen to be insanely sex-”

There was a sudden, heavy silence in the locker room, and Ben decided it was time to make his presence known. He opened the door and peered in. Spike had shoved himself as far into a corner as he could, looking confused and upset, like he couldn’t decide whether to be horrified or smugly flattered that the Slayer had started to say he was sexy. Buffy stood only a few feet away from the vampire, her own expression a mix of anxiety, disgust, and guilt.

Some of the pieces of the puzzle started falling into place. Buffy had done _something_ to Spike while under the control of a ritual. Because of that something, he didn’t want her touching him and was upset at the thought of her finding him attractive. _Obviously something sexual,_ Ben thought. He could be completely wrong, but it seemed as if, because of some strange ritual, Buffy had – against her will – forced herself on Spike. And there was a baby involved, its well-being somehow connected to Spike rather than Buffy.

It being the Hellmouth, the tabloid headline thought that popped into his head didn’t seem completely farfetched. Slayer impregnates male vampire during sex ritual gone very wrong. He suspected it wasn’t quite as simple as that, though. Now that he had an idea of what was going on, he could tell both were exhibiting signs of rape trauma. Either a ritual they had done on purpose had gone horribly wrong, or they’d gotten caught up in something someone else was doing.

“The prescription should be ready in a few minutes,” Ben said calmly into the strained silence. “For right now, why don’t you fill me in on what exactly is going on? From listening to the two of you yelling at each other, I’ve figured out some of the pieces – like the fact that there was some ritual-induced unwanted sex that led to Spike getting pregnant – but I really would like the complete picture.”

They both stared at him incredulously for a moment before Buffy glared at Spike. “You told him? I can’t _believe_ you told him!”

“I didn’t bloody tell him!” Spike snapped, sounding exasperated. “Do you actually listen to anyone who isn’t one of your little Scoobies? Said he figured it out from all of your yelling, didn’t he? And so what if I _had_ told him? I’ve a right to, considering you told your Watcher, your mates, and your sodding _boyfriend_ before you even told me. Sprog’s in _my_ sodding body, innit? That means it’s my right to tell anyone I want, and not yours!”

Despite not needing to breathe, he was panting slightly as he shouted at the Slayer, his fists clenched and a wild look in his eyes. Buffy looked almost as on edge. Ben didn’t need his rudimentary training in psychological treatment to know what was going on. Both of them had had their control taken away. He understood that intimately. Every time his “sister” took over their shared body, he felt that violating loss of control. Unfortunately, the vampire and the Slayer seemed to be dealing with it in the same way: trying to get control of Spike.

In Spike’s case, that would actually be healthy, except he seemed to be doing it by indulging in reckless behavior. Possibly even self-harming, considering how dangerous sunlight was for vampires. Ben had done similar things himself a time or two, cutting himself to prove that he was the one in control of his own body.

Spike pushed away from the corner and stalked towards Ben. “You’ve managed to figure out the gist of it. Slayer and me got caught up in some fertility ritual. It made her want to get our private bits better acquainted, and I couldn’t do a sodding thing about it because your government stuck a bloody microchip in my head. Now I’ve a body heat leaching little parasite in me, and she’s bloody insane when it comes to protecting it. If that’s enough share time for everyone, Slayer’s mum is a nice lady and doesn’t deserve to be in pain.”

With that, Spike grabbed the still warm blanket Ben had brought him, wrapped it around himself with the one he’d brought from the Summers home over it and stalked out of the locker room. Buffy tried to go after him, but Ben planted himself between her and the door.

“You need to let him go, Buffy,” he said firmly. “I know you feel like you need to be in control, but if you keep trying to take his, things are just going to end up worse for both of you.”

Buffy was shaking her head before he even finished. “No, no, no. I can’t just let him go and do whatever. You heard him, insanely protective crazy person, that’s me.” She tried for a cheerful, perky smile.

“Yeah, I want to hear more about that eventually, but are you really sure it’s all that’s making you act the way you are? Ask yourself this, would you be reacting to everything the same way if, instead of having sex, you’d been forced to shake hands?”

She blinked at him, opened and closed her mouth a couple of times without making a sound, and then just shook her head again. “Look, I really appreciate you trying to help, but this isn’t anyone else’s business but ours.”

“You’re going to need a doctor,” he pointed out as she tried to push past him. That froze her in her tracks.

“...Why?” she asked, eyes narrowing.

“Because,” he started patiently, “pregnancies need to be monitored. People had babies without help for centuries, I know, but a lot of times the mother and/or baby died.” His patient tone turned blunt at the end. “If you really do feel protective, then you should care about the health of the fetus and of the… uh, carrying parent. There are things that can go wrong that can be circumvented if they’re caught in time.”

Buffy paled as she thought about all of that, looking like she was going to be sick. “Oh god,” she whispered.

“Okay, look, I’m still just a resident, and I’m not exactly specializing in obstetrics, but I know enough to monitor a pregnancy and make sure the baby is developing correctly. You can either just wing it on your own, explain to someone else how this is all possible with Spike being both male and technically dead, or you can use me.” He quickly pulled a pencil and scrap of paper out of his pocket to jot down his number. He pressed it into her hand. “You both also need some therapy. I’m not a professional, but I think I can help you.”

Buffy stared down at the paper then back up at him. “You’re right about needing a doctor, but the rest….” She started shaking her head again and swallowed convulsively a few times. “We don’t need therapy. We’re, we’re _fine._ We don’t need anything. We’re just fine.”

Then she slipped past him and darted away.

 

**…**

 

The Slayer, Spike decided, had gone completely ‘round the bend. He’d picked up Joyce’s prescription – the pharmacy tech had apparently been told to expect him or the Slayer – and headed back to the Summers home with only a cursory look for the amulet. He had been getting really cold by that point and just wanted to get back to what passed for home these days. He and the Bit had just managed to get the pills into Joyce when the Slayer had stormed in, eyes wild and slightly unfocused.

Now she was dragging him up the stairs to her room, muttering “we’re fine” over and over under her breath. He was more or less fine – or would be once he was left in peace long enough to sort himself out – but the Slayer most definitely was _not._

“You need to get some sleep,” she said, pushing him into the room. “Just plug the electric blanket in. Once I make sure Mom’s okay, I’ll ask Willow to make you a new amulet. It should hopefully be done by tonight so we can patrol. First though….” She took a deep breath and held her hand out to him. “Hi, I’m Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.”

Spike stared down at her outstretched hand, then into her falsely cheerful expression. He had no idea what she was on about, but he found himself feeling oddly more at ease with her. He always had gotten on well with crazy people. He hesitantly took her hand in his and shook it.

“Spike, killer of two of your lot.” He didn’t particularly want to antagonize her at the moment, but she _had_ brought up the whole vampire slayer thing. Best she keep in mind who she was dealing with, even if he _was_ muzzled at the moment. “We’re going on patrol tonight, then? You aren’t plannin’ to just chain me up right now and leave me here for the next few months or so?”

“Yep to the first and nope to the second,” she chirped, letting go of his hand. “We’re parents now because of a handshake. No ooky rape stuff or disturbingly fantastic sex. Just two civilized adults working together for the good of our child. So no binding you up with bubble wrap and chaining you in a bathtub full of packing peanuts.”

Spike stared at her wide-eyed. He wasn’t sure which was most disturbing, her cheerful tone, the bright and perky look on her face, or the actual words coming out of her mouth. She wanted to pretend they’d gotten into this situation through a bloody _handshake_? What the bloody hell? Just wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened, did she? He’d think about that later. For now, he focused on her last comment.

“That was an option, was it?” he asked. Bubble wrap and packing peanuts, eh? That was weirdly cute, like something you’d see in a My First Bondage Barbie playset.

“Yes, yes it was,” she said, some of the perkiness replaced with amusement at herself. She still seemed _off_ somehow, but not as much. She turned to go, then whirled back to face him. “What do you want for dinner tonight? Or, well, I guess breakfast for you, technically. What do you think we should have?”

He stared at her blankly for a moment, not sure if he was hearing her right. She was asking his opinion on something? Okay, it wasn’t really all that important of a something, but still….

“I’m not really the best cook,” she continued, sounding nervous. “But I could make something simple. Or, or there could be take out or delivery or something. Do you like Chinese?”

“Um…. Yeah, yeah, I do.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “I, uh, like egg foo young. The little place a couple blocks down from the magic shop has a spicy shrimp version. Good eggrolls, too.”

She nodded sharply. “Right, okay then. I can call in an order there later. I… um…. You, you should get some sleep. I’ll see you when you wake up.”

She turned and left, leaving a very bewildered Spike alone in the room. What had that been all about? _I’m cold and tired, and I really don’t want to think about this right now,_ he decided, changing into a pair of black sweatpants. Joyce had bought them for him so he didn’t have to use the giant boy scout’s castoffs.

He didn’t want to think about it, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself as he curled up under the blankets on the Slayer’s bed. She wanted to pretend nothing had happened. God, he wished that really was an option. Every time she touched him – or even got too close – he remembered the way it had felt that night. He shuddered, sickeningly aroused at the memory.

It should have been Drusilla. If he had to have been caught up in some bizarre sex ritual, it should have been with Dru, not the Slayer. His dark goddess may have been barmy, but she’d taken the time and effort to learn his body just as much as he’d learned hers. Hell, some of the things he liked were because she’d spent months teaching him to like them. She was the only one who had any kind of right to make him feel like that. Instead, the most incredible sex of his existence had been with a girl who barely knew him and utterly despised what she did know.

Dru may have thrown him away like rubbish, but he still felt like he had betrayed her somehow. _Sorry, pet,_ he thought miserably as he drifted off to sleep.

He dreamed of his wicked princess tying him up like one of her dollies, claiming him as hers as she used to do, the restraints a comfort rather than a prison. The ropes became bubble wrap as she climbed into a bathtub full of packing peanuts. He pulled her close and kissed her, his dreaming self only vaguely aware that the woman in his arms had changed from wistful darkness to vibrant sunlight.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue taken from the episode “No Place Like Home”.

Spike liked humans. They were one of the reasons he’d formed the truce with the Slayer that had ultimately lost him Dru. They were absolutely delicious – especially chased with a good beer and something battered up and fried – but that wasn’t the only reason. They were such complex bundles of simplicity, humans were. Like chunks of quartz that had been haphazardly faceted by the hand of God and man. Look at one from a slightly different angle, and the entire thing seemed new and strange, even though it was the same chunk of rock that it had always been.

He’d seen the Slayer’s bitchy side quite a lot, along with the part of her that enjoyed a good fight, both verbal and physical. He’d seen her protective nature, both the normal version with her friends and family and the psychotically violent one the ritual had brought out. He’d even been there when she’d shown her vulnerability while feeling cheap and used after sex with some pathetic college boy. God, had it been fun taunting her out of that particular funk.

He’d seen her quiet, desperate strength as she fought a seemingly losing battle against the true, ugly essence of the person she had loved. It had reminded him so strongly of his human self’s reaction to his mother’s terminal illness – devastated but determined to keep going and do what was needed – that he’d hesitated before leaving her to her fate. If he hadn’t had Dru to tend to, he might have done more than just hesitate.

Despite all of that and living in her home for almost a week now, he had never really witnessed her tender side. He was seeing it now as she gave her mum a plate of Chinese takeout, her free hand patting Joyce’s in a gesture of shared reassurance.

“You’re looking better,” the Slayer said with a hesitant smile as she sat down beside Joyce. They were all at the small dining room table, with Spike across from Joyce and next to Dawn.  

Joyce’s answering smile was warm and strong, though Spike was pretty sure it was just the medicine masking things. She still smelled _off_ somehow. It reminded him of something, but he couldn’t quite place it. _Docs will figure out what’s what with her,_ he told himself. _Get her all sorted and healthy._

“I’m feeling a lot better, too,” Joyce said. “I was even considering going out for a bit, but I’m happy with staying in and having dinner as a family.”

She very pointedly looked at Spike as she said it, which left him feeling odd. Was he part of their family? _Well, I_ am _related to her future grandkid, so I guess that makes us family,_ he thought cynically. He really did like Joyce, and she seemed fond of him, but he was feeling too off balance when it came to Summers women right now.

He had honestly expected Buffy to be back in megabitch mode when he’d woken up, but that hadn’t happened. She wasn’t quite as freakishly perky – which he thought was a good thing – but she was very obviously trying to be nicer. She’d even cut up a fresh pineapple and arranged it all decoratively on a plate for him right after giving him a new amulet. Then she’d gone off to get the Chinese food from the restaurant he’d recommended.

The whole pineapple thing was weird enough, but actually being hungry for human food was just _bizarre_. His demonic energy still seemed to be burning away whatever wasn’t absorbed by the sprog, though, thank god. It was hard enough just getting shower time with three females in the house. He didn’t want to even think what it’d be like if he had to use the loo, too. Of course, it wouldn’t have been as much of a problem if he hadn’t developed the urge to shower three or four times a day in the time since he’d come back willingly with the Slayer.

He always seemed to smell like her and felt itchy and sort of greasy, even though he wasn’t. Dawn’s peach scented body wash seemed to help with all that. The Slayer’s Mystic Breeze – whatever the hell that was supposed to be – was slightly less girly, but the point was to get her scent off of him, not add to it. Besides, if being pregnant hadn’t diminished it any, smelling like a bloody peach wasn’t going to hurt his feeling of manliness.

The phone rang, pulling him from his thoughts. Joyce started to get up, but the Slayer shot to her feet and grabbed it before her mother could even finish standing up. He listened in on both sides of the conversation long enough to suss out that it was the watcher, and that he was going on about the orb from last night’s patrol. Had nothing to do with him, really, so he focused on what was important. The fact that the spicy shrimp egg foo yung was abso-bloody-lutely fantastic and was taking care of the gnawing feeling of hunger along with the half-gallon of O positive he’d downed right before.

It wasn’t the same as getting it fresh from the tap, but god was the flavor amazing. Even packaged up and kept in the fridge, it was more vibrant and filling than the vile pig swill could ever be. It was what he was supposed to feed on, what he _needed_. Made him feel more alive, it did. He had almost forgotten how good human was.

“Oh, did those books about the ritual come in with the afternoon shipments?” the Slayer asked, catching Spike’s attention.

“Ah, yes, they did,” the watcher answered, his voice easy enough for Spike’s sensitive ears to pick up over the phone. “The situation with the Dagon Sphere seemed slightly more pressing, however.”

Rupert would think that, wouldn’t he? _Bet it’d be a different story if_ he _was the one in the family way,_ he thought in annoyance. In fact, if it had been any of the Scoobies, the whole lot of them would be researching night and day.

The Slayer sighed. “Yeah, I guess, since it involves some unnamed evil thing. Spike and I will check out the place where we got the sphere while you read up on the ritual. We’ll be by after to find out what you’ve figured out.”

“Buffy… are, are you really sure taking Spike is such a good idea? He _is_ evil, after all. He may choose to turn on you and join this unnamed entity.”

She hesitated. The bloody bitch _hesitated_ , looking at him like he was a mindless animal that couldn’t be trusted not to take a bite out of her while piddling on her expensive new shoes. He stood up with enough force to make his chair fall backwards and glared at her. He ignored Dawn’s startled squeak and Joyce’s gasp of surprise.

“The rules, Slayer,” he said, his voice deadly calm. “Please do remember the bloody rules, if they aren’t too much to wrap your little blonde head around. I let you get away with leaving me behind – even let you go ahead and chain me up during – for those first couple days because you actually had a point about needing to get my strength up.” He stared at her quietly for a moment, letting his words sink in before he continued. “Do it now, and I’m out of here.”

Spike tended to have a bit of a flashbang temper; rage and a tantrum or two generally didn’t produce much more than random violence. He was at his most truly dangerous when he went cool and calm. He didn’t think she had realized that. Or that while he couldn’t cause her any physical harm, he could still hurt her. He knew words. Knew how they could tear a person up inside and make them bleed forever. Properly chosen and aimed, they could cause more damage than even the most brutal beating.

The Slayer’s hand tightened on the phone receiver, her eyes narrowing and lips pressing together in a thin, angry line. She may have been acting nicer since his little jaunt to the hospital that morning, but she obviously had issues about not having complete control of the situation.

“I only play with others when there’s somethin’ in it for me. You _know_ that. It’s why I teamed up with you.” And why he’d helped Adam, but now wasn’t a good time to bring that up, though it was another time when he’d ultimately thrown his hat in with her lot. He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair, trying to let go of his anger. The human blood he’d been drinking made it a bit harder. It made him more excitable and impulsive. “Things used to being worshipped and feared want blind followers. Yeah, I’ll work with others, but I’m nobody’s sodding lackey.”

She nodded jerkily. “He’s coming with me, Giles. Teaming up with something like that isn’t his style.”

“Buffy –”

“It’s not negotiable, Giles,” she interrupted harshly. “He’s coming with me. Just find out what you can about this ritual. _Please_. I… _Spike_ really needs to know what’s going on.”

The other end of the line was silent for a moment before the watcher sighed heavily. “Very well, Buffy. I’ll trust your judgement in this.” The other man’s unspoken “I hope we don’t regret it” no doubt echoed just as loudly to the Slayer as it did to Spike. Pain at her surrogate father’s reluctant trust flashed across her features before being hidden away.

“Thank you, Giles,” she said quietly before telling him goodbye and hanging up. She walked over to her mum and lightly squeezed her shoulder. “I need to check some stuff out, okay? You take it easy.” Her gaze landed on Dawn. “You take care of her.”

“Honey, I’m still the mom,” Joyce gently chided. “I’m _fine_. You and Spike go do what you need to do, then get the information from Giles.” She looked away from her daughter to focus on Spike. “Let me know what he says. I may not know anything about mystical rituals, but I _did_ carry and give birth to two children. Some of it may make more sense to someone with some actual firsthand knowledge.”

“’Preciate it, Joyce. You’re a good, classy lady.” The glance he shot towards the Slayer made it clear he wished she had inherited more of that from her mother. Joyce’s answering look made it just as clear that she was giving him a pass on that thought because of everything that had happened.

Spike just grinned at the woman unrepentantly before following the Slayer out the door. He didn’t mind being around the girl quite as much when it meant being able to hit things. He needed his spot of violence more than he needed time away from her.

 

**…**

 

The flex and stretch of muscles. The stinging pain of blows both given and received. It was a dance, the kind that was wild and spontaneous rather than structured, like a free verse poem recited through movement rather than speech. Of course, that was the secret of the universe that all poets – even the utterly terrible ones – knew intimately. Fighting, dancing, fucking, singing, even just existing, it all boiled down to poetry.

Spike never had been able to properly express himself through the written word, but each punch, kick, block, and dodge conveyed his meaning. He hadn’t a bloody clue who the idiot fledge he was fighting was – didn’t particularly care, really – but the other vampire understood him perfectly. He was not weak. Not defenseless. Not helpless. Every blow expressed that.

There was no structure, but there was a pattern, and Spike felt a momentary sense of loss as it headed inexorably towards the final stanza. He pulled the stake out of his pocket as he whirled – sliding in close under the fledge’s wild swing – and thrust it home into his opponent’s chest. The yellow eyes filled with confusion and fear before their owner poofed into dust.

He turned towards the Slayer, almost vibrating with the rush of the kill as he watched her. She’d already dusted her first vampire and was working on the last of the trio that had wandered into their path. God, but she was amazing when she really moved. He’d always thought that, from the moment he’d first seen her take the dance floor at the Bronze. Back then, he’d wondered – and still did – if that had always been a part of her, or if she’d woken up one morning with it. Her slayer powers activated, filling her with vibrancy and life and saving her from the living death of mediocrity.

She spun around to face him before the dust of her last kill even settled, looking worried as she hurried towards him. _Don’t flinch,_ he told himself as he realized what she meant to do. _Don’t flinch, don’t –_ The memory of her holding him down was so strong he could almost feel the heat of her skin seeping into him. He couldn’t let her touch him. Couldn’t let himself be that helpless again, pinned to the ground while she....

 _Bloody buggering hell._ He jerked away from her before her hand could brush against his arm, pulling his coat closed both for a feeling of protection and to hide his reaction to her. He was disgusted with himself for both reasons. It was his own sodding fault he felt like this. She wouldn’t have been able to do much more than rub against him if he hadn’t responded to her like a bitch in heat. Still probably would have resulted in the sprog if all it needed was a sexual act, but he wouldn’t be flinching away from the bloody slayer like a pathetic git.

The Slayer swallowed hard and slowly lowered her hand. Her eyes were too wide and her pulse was speeding like a frightened rabbit’s.

“I just… I… I needed to make sure….” She trailed off, the creepily perky smile from earlier spreading across her face. “Nothing happened, Spike. Remember? Just a handshake. Nothing else. You’re fine. We’re both fine. Nothing. _Happened_.”

Spike stared at her incredulously. “Nothing hap….” He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, silently counting to ten before opening them again and letting his hand fall. “What the bloody _hell_ are you on about?” he demanded through gritted teeth. “Did that doctor give you stupid pills or something?”

She flinched at that. “No, he did not give me ’stupid’ pills. He just said… he said to think about how I’d act if, if instead of… what happened, there was just a, a handshake.”

“He _meant_ for you to separate out your trauma from your actions, you stupid bint,” he exploded. “Not to pretend you didn’t rape someone! Especially not to the person you bloody well did it to!”

He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but her eyes got even wider and she paled. “You… you said…. You said you didn’t blame me,” she whispered. She sounded young and scared.

 _She_ is _young and scared,_ he reminded himself. God, was he tired. Not physically – he’d gotten plenty of sleep and was still pumped up from the fight – but emotionally. He wanted to just sleep his way through this entire thing.

“I _don’t_ blame you. Not your fault that what happened… happened.” As that rather awkward sentence popped out, Spike realized that his little blow up at her was the first time he’d ever used the word rape to describe what she’d done to him. “It still _happened_ though. No amount of playing pretend is going to make that go away. You can’t just… just –” He broke off with a swear and turned away from her, running his hand through his hair before facing her again. “I know you’ve this thing pushin’ at you to keep the sprog safe. I _get_ that. But you wanna make sure me an’ it are okay? You do that by _asking_ , not touching.” He couldn’t keep the revulsion out of his voice or stop the shudder at the thought of her hands on him.

Her expression closed up at his reaction. “Fine. You seem to be okay. Let’s just go,” she turned stiffly and walked away, leaving Spike to follow her to their destination.

 

**…**

 

 _Why did I…? I should have just…. Damn it, Buffy, why are you so_ stupid _?_ Buffy thought as she led the way to the factory where she’d found the Dagon Sphere. She _knew_ Spike didn’t want to be touched by her, but she just hadn’t known what else to do. He might have been hurt fighting the other vampire. Her instinct had been to run her hands over him, checking for injuries.

She could quip and throw out pop culture references with the best of them – even babble at the drop of a hat – but when it came to the important stuff, she was action girl, not word girl. Spike seemed to understand the language of action just as well as she did, but he also swam like a fish in the world of words. She could tell from all the little flinches she always pretended not to see when she or her friends said something cutting.

 _Words,_ she thought as they approached the fence around the abandoned factory. She could give him words, couldn’t she? She looked back at him, intending to explain. She’d tell him that she wasn’t good with words. That she’d thought if she could pretend hard enough, they could frolic in the Egyptian river together about the entire mess they were in. She’d let him know why it was so hard to control these new instincts. They were buried deep down and tangled together with her slayer instincts, impulses she’d been taught and encouraged to give free reign.

She meant to tell him all of that, but what came out was, “Do… do you need help over… the….” He ignored her, lightly jumping up, hands briefly making contact with the top bar of the fence as he flipped over it and landed in a graceful crouch. The look he gave her clearly said he couldn’t believe she was asking that. “…fence…. No, I guess, not.”

Oh god, she was pathetic. She cleared the fence and pulled a flashlight out of her jacket pocket as they headed towards the decrepit building. She was both disgusted and angry with herself. They’d had a chance to finally work things out. Spike had actually acknowledged what she’d done instead of calling it mutually nonconsensual or otherwise dancing around the uncomfortable R word.

They could have talked, but her insecurities had raised their ugly heads, and she’d said something stupid, reacting to him facing things head on as a sign of blame. Then he’d seemed so disgusted by just the thought of her, her own insecurities had roared through her like fire-breathing dragons. She’d clammed up and walked away from the conversation before the horribly selfish question inside her could burst out like a dirty soap bubble.

“Snazzy little fixer-upper, innit?” Spike said dryly as her flashlight played along the debris-ridden lower level.

“Says the guy who lives in a crypt,” she shot out before she could stop herself. Why did her ability to form words only work when it would cause problems?

“Hey, that crypt is pretty sodding nice considering what it is, and what I have to work with.” Thankfully, there was a thread of amusement along with the indignation in his voice. “Renovating by way of city dump ain’t easy, and the extended ‘vacation’ at Chateau Summers isn’t exactly helping much, now is it?” His gaze flickered around the large open area, his superior night vision picking up even more than she could. He sniffed at the air like a bloodhound. “Doesn’t look like there’s much down here. I can smell someone bleeding up the stairs, though.”

That one sentence cleared Buffy’s mind, flipping the switch from confused girl who was also the slayer to pure Slayer. She hurried to the stairs and rushed up them as quickly as she dared, Spike right behind her. She slowed at the top, darting her flashlight beam along in a search for the injured – and hopefully not dead – person that Spike had smelled. The whole sniffing thing was gross, but she had to admit it was useful.

She slowly moved forward, eyes widening when she caught sight of the badly beaten man tied to a chair in the center of the room. She ran to him and started loosening his restraints. He didn’t look like a security guard. In fact, he looked like some kind of monk. Could he be…?

“You’re the one who planted the Dagon Sphere, aren’t you?” she asked, already certain of the answer. “I got it. Don’t worry. I’m stronger than I look.”

“Slayer! Incoming!” Spike called out just as Buffy felt a presence behind her.

“Get him free,” she said to Spike as she whirled around, reaching out to grab the woman by the throat. Was this the ancient primordial evil Giles had told her about? _Skanky ho isn’t what usually comes to mind when I hear about ancient evil,_ she thought in contempt. Then the skanky ho in question wrenched Buffy’s hand from her throat and threw her into the wall with enough force to crack it.

Pain flared through her entire body as she slid down the wall. It was almost as stunning as the fact that she’d just been tossed aside like a scrap of paper. _What just… how…?_ The woman in the red dress was strong. Crazy strong. It made Buffy feel like she had when her powers had been suppressed on her eighteenth birthday. She hated that feeling of helplessness. _Is this how Spike felt when…_? The fleeting thought slipped away as movement caught her eye.

A monochrome flash of black leather and white hair. Spike. He lunged at the woman and tackled her. When that didn’t do much more than stagger her slightly, he hooked a leg around one of hers and managed to shove her to the ground.

 _No, Spike, no!_ Buffy thought desperately, her heart thudding with terror. She was stronger than he was, and she had… she shuddered, thinking of how easily she’d been flung aside. Spike seemed to be holding his own for the moment, but she knew he didn’t stand a chance.

“On your feet, Slayer,” Spike called out, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. There was a wild gleam in his eyes like he was enjoying himself. A few swift strides and he was by her side, close enough to present a united front. “Help me kick this dozy bint’s lopsided arse.”

Unthinkingly, he held his hand out to her to help her up. Then he froze like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming semi, eyes wide as he realized what he was doing. Before either of them could react, the woman in red was up again, her hand clamping around the back of Spike’s neck.

“My ass is not lopsided!” she hissed angrily. Then, with another show of her monstrous strength, she tossed him towards the window. He hit the glass with a loud crash and fell through the shattered remains.

 _Oh god, oh god, oh god,_ Buffy thought in numb horror, a chill going through her. _He’s okay. He can handle a fall like that. He’s fine. He’s okay. Our baby’s just fine._

“What the hell was that?” the woman asked, looking out the window. “And why was its hair that color?”

Rage and fear alternated through Buffy in sickening waves of heat and cold. How dare that bitch try to hurt her child? How dare she call Spike an _it_ , like he didn’t matter? _You’ve called vampires “it” before,_ a small internal voice reminded her. It was like a slap in the face, and it startled her enough to think of what she needed to do. Instead of getting into a futile fight with the woman, Buffy ran to the monk again and pulled him out of the chair.

“Hey, hands off my holy man!” the woman shouted as Buffy dove out the broken window with him, twisting her body to absorb the impact when they fell.

 

**…**

 

 _Stupid bloody wanker,_ Spike cursed himself as he rolled onto his hands and knees in the shards of glass. With an inarticulate scream, he pulled back his arm and punched the ground hard enough to split the skin and drive some of the shards into it. He had just enough of a hold on his self-control to use his right hand so he didn’t damage his dominant.

First he told the girl off for trying to touch him, then he bloody well held his hand out to her, expecting her to take it and pull herself up. She was already confused and didn’t need him being an inconsistent git added to the mix. He hadn’t been thinking. They were fighting together, and she had been on the floor. That’s what you _did_ in that situation. You offered your partner a hand up. That’s what they were, he realized suddenly. They were fighting together, and they were having a kid together. They had to be a team, but his issues and hers were tangling together and buggering everything all to hell.

He’d frozen like a pathetic little nancy-boy, letting that bitch get the drop on him and throw him out a window. He was so bloody _useless_. A sound drew him from his self-loathing, and he looked up. He cursed and scrambled away – still on hands and knees – just in time to avoid being squashed by the Slayer as she plummeted from the same window. At first, he thought she’d been thrown, but then he realized she had her arms wrapped around the monk. Slayer had made a run for it.

The fall had winded her, but – unlike a normal human – she was up in a crouch in just a moment. She automatically reached out towards him, snatching her hand back almost immediately as if she feared being burnt.

“Are… are you okay?” she asked shakily, her gaze zeroing in on his injured hand and the jagged bits of glass embedded in it.

“I’m fine,” he said gruffly, getting to his feet and shaking the debris from his coat. “Best we be on our way, though, if you want to help your new friend there.”

He wanted to stay and fight the bitch in red some more – the excitement of going against something stronger than a slayer a nearly irresistible siren song thrumming through his very being – but he didn’t think the monk was going to last for very much longer. He didn’t particularly care one way or the other about the man’s survival, but you couldn’t get much in the way of information from the truly dead.

The Slayer nodded jerkily and got the monk to his feet, being as gentle as she could while still in a hurry to get him to safety. Spike came around his other side, helping to support him as they headed back towards the fence. They’d need to rip it open once they got there. There was no way the battered human could survive being flung over the top.

 _Would be fun, though,_ he thought wistfully. All the best games with humans involved hurting them in some way. Sodding fragile bastards, weren’t they?

“Stop… please,” the man moaned.

“No, we have to keep on going,” the Slayer said, her voice both gentle and firm.

She treated random strangers like this? Like they were actually important? Spike looked at him, trying to see him the way the Slayer did. All he saw was walking – well, staggering anyway – food. He swallowed hard, forcing back the urge to lap at all of the leaking wounds. All that blood going to waste. _Blighter’s dying anyway, isn’t he? Not like he needs it,_ he thought resentfully.

The Slayer glanced at him when they reached the chain link fence, her expression worried. “We need to let him rest for a bit.”

“My journey is done, I think,” the monk said, collapsing in exhaustion as they carefully settled him against the fence.

“Hey, now, don’t get all metaphory on me,” she said, patting him on the shoulder reassuringly. “You just rest while me and Spike get this fence taken care of. Then we’re out of here. All of us.”

Spike gave her a look at that, one brow raised. She had to realize he was dying, didn’t she? She refused to meet his gaze, not wanting to acknowledge the truth. He understood not wanting to lose her family, mates, or watcher. She cared about them, and it would hurt her if something happened. But this stranger? Why? Why did she care?

 _Is it a pride thing?_ he wondered. _No lives lost on the watch of Buffy Summers, Vampire Slayer?_ He could understand that, but he didn’t think it was her motivation. She cared about this random stranger. He could vaguely remember that he’d felt like that as a human, but he couldn’t remember the feeling itself.

He shook his head, bewildered and utterly tired of all the emotional nonsense. He wanted to destroy something. To hit things or rip something apart. _And lookie here, we have this handy-dandy little fence what needs torn open._ He slid his fingers through the links and yanked them apart, the violent action and the sting of pain as the metal bit into his hands soothing some of the confusion and restlessness.

“You have to… the Key,” the monk mumbled weakly. “You must protect the Key.”

“Fine, we can all protect the Key together. Somewhere far, far from here.”

Spike snorted and shook his head. “Slayer’s real good at protecting things. ‘Course, she don’t seem to mind playing whack-a-mole with the container ‘s long as the thing needing protectin’ is safe ‘n’ sound.”

She shot him a withering glare. “Now is not the time, Spike,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

“Never is, is it?” he muttered. She was right though. As much as they desperately needed to get themselves sorted, now wasn’t the time. He sighed and looked at the dying man. “This Key? What is it? Can’t keep it safe if we don’t know what it bloody well is.”

“Energy,” the monk gasped out. “It’s a portal. It opens the door…. Many will die.”

Many would die, huh? Sounded like a bit of alright to him, honestly. Lots of fun and fireworks. He had to bite his tongue to keep from saying it out loud. He didn’t feel like being smacked around by the Slayer tonight, and he’d already let his words run away with him a bit.

“You mean the Dagon Sphere? I told you, we have it. We’ll keep it safe. Let’s just get out of here and get you to a –” She was babbling, still trying to save what couldn’t be saved. Poor, foolish girl.

“No. For centuries it had no form at all. My brethren, its only keepers. Then the abomination found us. We had to hide the Key, gave it form, molded it flesh... made it human and sent it to you.”

For a moment, Spike thought he meant the sprog. _I’m going to kill him,_ he thought, clenching his fists to keep from trying to rip the man’s throat out. His lot had put things into motion, done something to get them into that cemetery together at just the wrong moment. Had made the helplessness he’d started to come to terms with so much worse. _Don’t care if the bloody chip turns my bloody brain to mush, he’s_ dead.

Then the monk’s words about the Key being human registered. Thursday had been made partially from his essence, not his genetics. That meant it was part vampire and probably didn’t count as human. The Slayer had gone white with rage, no doubt thinking the same thing he had.

“Who is it?”  Spike asked harshly. If the monks could turn energy into a human, what else could they do? What had they done to hide the cuckoo in the Slayer’s nest?

“Sister… we made… Dawn, she….” He trailed off in a fit of coughing, fading fast.

Spike stared at him in stunned disbelief. The little bit was some kind of mystic key? A thing of energy made human? That meant…. That changed…. _Nothing, really,_ he realized. In the grand scheme of things, what mattered was who someone was, not what they had started out as.

“No,” the Slayer whispered. She was shaking and looked like one more shock would completely unravel her. “No!” she insisted more firmly. “Dawn is not some, some _key_. She’s my sister. I have memories –”

“We built them.”

“No, that can’t be! You’re lying,” she shouted, visibly forcing herself not to grab the man by the shoulders and shake him. “How could you…? Why would you mess with my life like that? What _is_ she?”

“Human... now human. And helpless. Please... she's an innocent in this. She needs you. She doesn’t know –” He convulsed, a harsh, hacking cough shaking through him, followed by one last rattling breath.

 _Helpless,_ Spike thought. It was a horrible way to be. She was a good kid, Dawn was. She didn’t deserve to be helpless.

He was suddenly pulled from his thoughts by a slight tremor through the ground. It was their only warning before the woman in red was on them, grabbing the Slayer by the hair and slamming her into the ground. Then she wrapped one hand around Spike’s throat in a vicelike grip and lifted him into the air as if he weighed no more than a small child.

“It’s not nice to take other people’s things!” she spat, glaring at the Slayer as the girl slowly got to her feet. “Tell me where my key is, or I’ll rip his head off.”

Her eyes went wide and her mouth opened and closed several times. “I… it…. Th-the….”

 _The ritual,_ he realized suddenly. He was in danger, which meant the sprog was too. It was trying to make her expose Dawn as the key. _Fight it, Buffy. Come on, fight it!_ Maybe he could…. She was just close enough. Not even trying to analyze why he was doing it, Spike pulled his legs up and started struggling, one of his seemingly wild kicks a carefully aimed blow to the Slayer’s head that knocked her unconscious.

His last coherent thought before the white hot agony burning through his head made it impossible was that it had been worth it. For Dawn. For Joyce. For… for Buffy.

 

**…**

 

Buffy slowly swam towards consciousness, her head pounding and a sick feeling of fear in her gut. Spike. Spike was in danger. That woman…. Oh god, she’d almost told that woman about Dawn. She couldn’t wrap her head around it. Dawn wasn’t her sister? That couldn’t be true. So many memories….

Spike had stopped her. Anyone who didn’t know the way he moved would have thought it was an accident, but he had deliberately stopped her. He had saved Dawn. From her. Oh god, the _chip_.  That woman had him, and he had to be in so much pain.

Buffy’s eyes snapped open and she struggled up to her feet, looking around wildly. Spike and the woman were gone. It was only her and the dead monk. She’d tried so hard to save him, but it hadn’t been enough. She was never enough, and now Spike was _gone._ She had to _do_ something. She had to find him. What was she supposed to do? Giles. She had to get to Giles. He’d know what to do.

She ran towards the Magic Box, not realizing in her confused panic that she hadn’t even thought about the danger to the baby. She just had to rescue Spike.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue taken from “No Place Like Home”
> 
> Warning: This chapter contains torture.

It was over. The terrible nightmare was finally over, though the aches and pains still lingered. He should have felt the joyous swell of victory – and perhaps it would come in time – but for now, all he felt was exhaustion. And pain, mainly from the headache that became steadily worse as the woman nattering on and on refused to shut the bloody hell up.

“Anya!” Giles yelled for the third time, trying to cut through her incessant yammering about magical commerce. There was a moment of blessed silence. “Would you like a job?”

She froze for a second, her efficient money-counting momentarily paused, and blinked. “Okay.”

“Good,” he said, some of the tension leaving him at the thought of having capable help. He’d experienced torture at the hands of a masterful sadist and had helped avert numerous apocalypses, yet none of that had prepared him for the horrors of retail. “We’ll talk shop tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Anya said again before going back to counting the money. “…Boss.” She smiled happily at the word.

 _At least someone’s in a good mood,_ he thought with a slight smile of his own. He sat up straighter in his chair with a groan and reached for one of the books he’d been reading off and on since his conversation with Buffy. While an ancient primordial evil was more important in the grand scheme of things, the situation Buffy and Spike were in right now was distressing to his slayer. He wished he could just blame the vampire and stake him for it, but – in this at least – he was guilty of no more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There was also the child to consider. It was an innocent. And, well, it was _Buffy’s_. Given her calling and short life expectancy – something he found too painful to dwell on overmuch – it might very well be the only child she’d any hope of ever having. It would be something of her that would continue on when the heartbreakingly inevitable finally came to pass.

At that moment, he made a vow to himself. He would end that innocent life himself if it came down to a choice between it and Buffy, but barring that, he would do his utmost to protect it. If that meant keeping Spike safe and well…. He sighed and rubbed at his tired eyes, resigning himself to the situation. _Then so be it._

“Did Buffy seem okay when you talked to her?” Willow asked as she and Xander each grabbed a book from the pile.

“I believe so, yes,” he said absently as he carefully opened the book. It was a fascinating read, detailing how the So’voriku became genderless and built their ritual. He had found a passage on some of the built-in safeguards before the deluge of customers had become too much to handle. “She, uh, decided to take Spike with her to investigate the location where she found the Dagon Sphere.”

“Good,” Xander said, sounding like he actually meant it. Giles had noticed a decided decrease in the young man’s rancor towards the vampire lately. “He seemed like he was going a little stir crazy when we were playing Mario Kart a couple days ago.”

“You’ve been getting awfully chummy with Spike lately,” Willow said, the frown evident in her voice. She did tend to get rather jealous of Xander’s time.

“Well, yeah…. I… uh, I kind of feel for the guy. He’s sort of growing on me. Like a fungus or something.” Xander sounded a little disturbed at the realization. “An evil, bloodsucking fungus.”

Giles shook his head, tuning them out as he read. _Now then, where was that passage? Ah, here we go…._ _In order to avoid too many unfortunate situations, a safeguard was built into the spell. It will have no effect on a couple at all unless…._ He stared at the words, the implications hitting him like a ton of bricks. He was only vaguely aware of the jingling bell that indicated someone had entered the store.

“Good lord,” he whispered.

“Did you find something, G-man?” Xander’s question blended in with Willow’s inquiry of “What’d you find?”.

“This, this passage indicates that in order for the ritual to work, the, uh, the dominant partner must feel a certain level of trust and protectiveness for the submissive while the submissive partner must be in love with the dominant. At, at least at a subconscious level. For both of them.”

As he spoke, Giles looked up at the person who had come in. Riley stared back at him, face contorted with bitter rage. And then Buffy burst in through the door, out of breath and utterly panicked.

**…**

By the time Spike was aware of his surroundings again, the pain in his head had subsided to a dull, aching throb. He had been stripped down to nothing but his jeans – even the bloody amulet was gone – and was hanging by his wrists from chains attached to the ceiling, high enough up that his toes barely touched the bottom of a plastic basin that went up to his ankles. Another set of chains were attached to the floor at one end and the metal cuffs around his ankles at the other.

 _Prob’ly to catch the blood,_ he thought in regards to the basin, glancing around. He was in a pretty posh looking bedroom, full of all kinds of decadent things. If he had a sweet little set-up like this, he’d be reluctant to let it get too stained.

The woman in red rose from the bed and approached him. “It’s about time, vampire. I was starting to think you’d sleep forever,” she said, face and voice oozing false cheer. They were suddenly gone as she fisted his hair and yanked his head down. “Now, tell me where my key is.”

“Don’t know a sodding thing about any key. Have you tried poking about at the local garden gnomes? People have a habit of hiding them under the bloody things.” As much as he’d wanted a second go at the bitch, he’d seen how easily she’d tossed the Slayer about, and he had enough sense to be afraid of her. Unfortunately, his usual reaction to fear was snark.

“You and your little girlfriend took my monk, so I took you. I could have taken her instead, but, I mean, why bother? She’d break like a little twig. And, more importantly, you. Insulted. Me.” The last three words were each punctuated with a brutal punch to the face. His right cheek shattered in a burst of pain, pinprick stars sparking across his vision. “What did he tell you?”

“He said… he hid it the one place you’d never be able to find it, even with a flashlight and both hands.” He could feel it building inside, a burning rage. How _dare_ this skanky bitch make him afraid? How dare she chain him up like this? He was not a bloody _victim_ to be bound up and abused. He let his most infuriating smirk spread across his face, fighting back the only way he could at the moment. “Up your hairy, lopsided arse.”

She let go of his hair and hit him again, a backhand across the jaw followed by a fist like a wrecking ball to his ribs. He felt two of them snap and drive into his lungs. Breathing was suddenly painful, but he struggled to keep doing it. He hated not being able to breathe. Did he actually need to now? Did the sprog need air?

“Where is my key?” she demanded again.

“Sod...off…bitch,” he gasped out.

“So, you wanna do this the hard way, huh? Fine.” She looked at something behind him. “You, bring the water.”

“Yes, your most wonderful Radiancy,” a disgusting little scab of a demon sniveled as he rushed forward with a five-gallon gas can.

“I left the monk able to walk away,” the woman said conversationally as she took it from her minion. “I mean, yeah, he needed help to do it, but he could still walk. That isn’t going to be a problem here.”

She tilted the gas can, letting the contents splash over his bare feet and into the basin. The horrible, itchy burn set in immediately, his skin beginning to redden and blister. He bit back a scream, his entire body tensing as he instinctively tried to lift his legs up away from the holy water. The chains held them firmly in place.

 _Oh God, please no._ A hysterical giggle almost escaped him at that thought. An evil, soulless vampire calling on God to save him from something holy.

He writhed and jerked as much as the restraints would allow, unable to stop the fruitless movement even though it jostled his broken ribs. The blessed water hissed and steamed, his flesh starting to bubble and dissolve. He could feel it seeping through his ruined skin, trickles of acid eating away at the muscle tissue beneath. He could deal with this. Dru used to use holy water on him sometimes. He could… he could….

Oh _god_ it hurt. A thousand ravenous ants crawling and biting. As the basin filled, they started to find the bottoms of his feet as well. A rising tide of burning, shrieking agony while worms of fire tunneled and writhed down from the gas can’s spout. It was too much. Everything that had happened with the Slayer, and now this. He could feel his mind slipping, trying to hide away from everything he’d been through in the past week.

…pretend it was just one of Dru’s games. Miss Edith could bloody well believe whatever she wanted, but _he’d_ always been Dru’s favorite dolly. He could almost see his princess now, flitting about, her finger over her mouth in a hushing gesture before she told him he mustn’t talk out of turn.

 _Just a game,_ he told himself. _Just one of Dru’s games._ All the while, the ants kept gnawing, their hunger never satisfied as they ate into the very demonic essence that kept him undead instead of just _dead_ dead, damaging him in a way that only something holy could. But he would stay quiet, and he would endure, because that’s what Dru wanted of him.

**…**

Buffy paced the confines of the training room like a caged tiger, too agitated to be out in the main part of the store with the others. She needed to move, to _do_ something. She couldn’t just sit around and wait while Willow attempted a locator spell. The woman in red had tortured the monk so badly he’d died. She was probably torturing Spike.

 _And Spike’s an idiot who likes to antagonize his enemies,_ she thought, remembering the way he’d acted when they’d been holding him prisoner in Giles’s apartment. Or, well, every other time she’d interacted with him, honestly. The woman was going to hurt him. Was probably already hurting him. What was it going to do to the baby? One wrong blow could kill it.

Oh god, her baby could _die_. It wasn’t even a cute little bump yet, and it could die. Or be brain damaged or so badly deformed that it would never lead a healthy, happy life. Bad enough stress to the system could cause spontaneous abortion, and she was pretty damn sure being kidnapped and tortured after getting your brain fried counted as bad stress.

Oh god, what if _Spike_ was brain damaged? Or hurt so badly that he couldn’t fully recover? She didn’t think vampires could regrow limbs. At least, not vampires under two-hundred. How would she explain that to their child?

 _Okay, Buffy, just stop and breathe,_ she told herself. _I don’t know what condition Spike is in right now, but the baby is at least still alive._ She knew that much. She could still feel that urge to protect it, nestled in with her slayer instincts. It wasn’t pushing at her as hard as normal, mainly because she was already pushing at herself to get moving, to go rescue Spike. He deserved that from her. He’d caused himself pain to stop her from betraying Dawn to the enemy. A soulless, evil demon had done something selfless. Her baby sister wasn’t her sister. It was all too much to wrap her head around.

She was startled from her thoughts by the door between the training room and store suddenly opening. Giles stepped in and carefully closed the door behind him. He had serious face. She didn’t like that he had serious face. Serious face was very much of the bad. Was he going to suggest they just leave Spike to be tortured and dusted? Riley had, before he’d stormed out.

“No arguments, Giles, we’re –”

“Buffy,” he interrupted gently. “My dear girl, I’m terribly sorry, but I must ask you something. I know this isn’t the best time, but I very much doubt there ever really will be a best time.”

She blinked at him in confusion. This was not what she’d been expecting. She didn’t know what he wanted to ask, but she was very sure she didn’t want him to ask it.

“Are you,” he began, then hesitated a moment. “Are you quite certain that, when you fell afoul of the ritual, Spike didn’t….” He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

Buffy felt sick as she stared at him. First Riley and now Giles. He hadn’t weighed in yet on what had happened between her and Spike. She should have been expecting it, and she should have expected this reaction.

“He didn’t want it,” she said harshly. “He didn’t want _me_.” She took a deep breath and ran her hand through her hair, forcing back tears. “My god, Giles, if you guys had _seen_ the look in his eyes…. He gets panic attacks sometimes if I get too close, and… and he has nightmares. He doesn’t tell me about them or anything, but sometimes, I go to check on him when he’s sleeping, and, and he’s.... whimpering. I did that to him. I….”

Instead of asking again if she was sure or trying to convince her she was wrong somehow, Giles put his arms around her. “My poor, dear girl. I’m so sorry. We discovered some things about the ritual, and I had to ask. To make completely certain Spike hadn’t set the entire thing up himself.”

She pulled away from him. “What do you mean? Why would you think that?”

“There are some safeguards – not very effective ones, honestly – built into the ritual. The, uh, more submissive part of the couple must, at least at a subconscious level, love the dominant. And the dominant must have a basic level of trust in – and a feeling of protectiveness for – the other.”

Buffy stared at him in stunned disbelief. Spike loved her? That couldn’t be possible. That was even more insane than the idea of her sister being some mystical blob of energy. But… he had kicked her in the head, despite the pain it would cause. _No. That was for Dawn and Mom,_ she told herself. They were nice to him.

Her mind played through the times he could have killed her, but hadn’t. The times _she_ could have killed him, but… hadn’t. She couldn’t deny that a bond had formed between them back when they’d formed that truce. Maybe even before. As much as she hated to admit it, there had always been… _something_ about fighting Spike. He brought out the best and worst in her, and had from the moment he’d applauded her in the alley outside the Bronze.

“Riley,” she said suddenly, feeling both numb and overwhelmed at the same time. “You told that to Riley, that’s why….”

No wonder he’d looked so hurt and angry when she’d burst in, desperate to go rescue Spike. She needed… she needed to find Riley, talk to him, explain that she loved him and, and…. And, quite honestly, she didn’t want to. She felt sick as she realized it, but it was true. She didn’t want to. She loved him – or at least thought she did – but somewhere along the way, being with him had become a chore. He always wanted to be the big, strong he-man for her, and it was exhausting trying to let him or dancing around his ego when she couldn’t.

“I’m afraid I was taken rather by surprise by my findings and didn’t realize he was even in the shop until I’d blurted it all out,” Giles said, real apology in his voice. Something inside of her eased just a little bit. Giles had her back. Her watcher was watching out for her. Her surrogate daddy looking after her while she was dealing with being a daddy - or mommy, whatever - and helping her be the Slayer instead of holding her back.

The door opened again, and Xander poked his head in. “Willow’s got the location.”

**…**

Seconds became centuries and minutes dragged on into eons as Spike lay curled on the carpet, the chill radiating through most of his body contrasting unpleasantly with the awful burn centered on his feet and eyes and splashed across his torso. He deserved the pain. He’d been bad hadn’t he? He hadn’t told what mustn’t be told, but he’d talked. Told the ranting woman that if she needed a key so badly, she should just call a sodding locksmith and be done with it.

The Dru he had built in his head had punished him for it. She’d unbound him and put him on the floor before sloshing the holy water across his body, saving the last bit to dash into his eyes. Made everything all fuzzy and streaks of color, it did. But he’d learnt his lesson, really, he had. No more talking out of turn.

“Is this some kind of _game_ to you?” the red blob shrieked, words spewing out of its mouth in pretty colors. It sounded so distressed, almost in tears. Poor blob. “This is valuable time from my life that I’m never going to get back, and you don’t even care.” She leaned down, practically spitting in his face. “Where. Is. My. _Key!_ ”

He squinted at her, trying to make out her features. She was blonde, and strong, which made him really uneasy for some reason. Her face was all scrunched up, like she was trying to be intimidating. She just looked like she’d gone all over constipated or somesuch. He must have said that last bit out loud, because Dru punished him for it. She slammed her foot down on the bend of his arm and ground into it, breaking the joint.

 _Sod it,_ he thought as he fought back a scream. He’d spoken again. Oh well, breaking some rules was all part of the game. As long as he didn’t break _the_ rule, he’d win. Then Dru would take care of him, and they’d have a nice little night out on the town once he was all better. They could go dancing. Or maybe ice skating, if it wasn’t so bloody _cold_.

Cold. Cold. That was important for some reason, wasn’t it? He shivered, a small pained sound escaping him as the movement jostled his arm, ribs, and feet.  Why was he so cold? There was something… something about…. Thursday. Was he supposed to do laundry on Thursday? No, no. The sprog. Thursday was the sprog.

 _Monday’s child is fair of face. Tuesday’s child is full of…. Focus, Spike, focus. Your wits can go on holiday later. Have to figure this out._ The sprog was draining him. What was it Buffy had said? Confusion and disorientation at first. Confusion seemed about right. Was he disoriented? He was… facing a direction. That was oriented, wasn’t it? He drifted a bit, too cold to really pay attention to much more than random snatches of conversation.

“… leave as soon as….”

“But, sir….”

“…ayer will be here soon.”

He caught a vaguely familiar scent as someone knelt beside him and gently moved his injured arm closer to his body. Then a hand slid under his shoulders and he was partially lifted up, warmth suddenly coursing through him as something was slipped over his head and down around his neck.

“If you were human, I’d get you to the hospital,” a soothing male voice said quietly as he was settled back down on the floor. Like the scent, it was vaguely familiar. “I think Buffy will be more of a help to you than I will right now.”

Warmth. Warmth was good. And sleep. He was so tired. And hungry. He wanted someone to drain right away. Maybe a male. Not his usual preference, but they tended to have more blood in them. An athletic one, someone strong who probably took a lot of supplements and the like, but no steroids.

And then a sweet little college girl to cuddle up with. To snuggle close while he slowly drank from her, her warm, soft body driving away the cold. She’d be chained up and gagged to keep her sweetly docile. He’d been good, so Dru would do it for him. _Won’t you, pet?_ They’d have something on the telly, and there would be a couple of quarter pound cheeseburgers covered in fried onions and pineapple chunks….

“Good lord.” A horrified voice with a comforting accent.

“Oh god, I’m gonna be sick.” Another male voice. Annoying wanker who might be becoming something else.

Vague, blurry movement, and a figure was by his side. A woman. Was it Dru? He couldn’t see well enough to tell. She didn’t smell right, but she hadn’t smelled right at all that night. There was a reason for that, but he couldn’t quite remember what it was. The woman hesitantly stroked his hair. Had to be Dru. The game was over, and now she was being sweet to him.

“Didn’t tell,” he mumbled. She made a shocked sound, and he squinted at the smear of color by his side, wishing he could see her clearly. “Didn’t tell. Won the game. Was supposed to win, wasn’t I, Dru?”

She hesitated before answering, long enough to make him uneasy. Sometimes he was supposed to lose. Usually he could figure out when, but not always. She’d be brassed off with him if he’d been meant to lose.

“Yeah,” she finally answered, voice strangely thick. “You were supposed to win, Spike. You did good.”

“Won’t throw me away again, love?”

Another hesitation. “No. I won’t throw you away. But we… we need to leave here, okay?”

He tried to get up, but his body didn’t seem to want to work right. Before he could try to force it, Dru held him down. “No!” she said sharply. “I’ve got this. You just rest, okay?”

“How are we going to get him out of here without hurting him too much?” asked the less-annoying-than-he-used-to-be boy.

“W-we… me and, and Willow, we c-could use a spell to, uh, make him a bit l-lighter.”

Spike closed his nearly useless eyes and let himself drift off, feeling completely safe for the first time in over a year. Dru was there, and she loved him again. That was all he needed.

**…**

Numb. Buffy felt utterly and completely numb as she stood under the shower spray and scrubbed herself raw with a loofah soaked in her sister’s soap. Had to wash away the “Buffy stink” as Dawn had so charmingly called it. Her scent had been deemed too traumatic without something to at least mask it a little. She choked back a sob and dropped the loofah, pouring too much of Dawn’s shampoo into her hand and rubbing it roughly into her scalp. It dripped down into her eyes, and she pretended that was the reason for the tears streaming down her cheeks.

The things Spike had said after they’d gotten him into Giles’s car…. He had curled up against her, and it had felt disturbingly good – like something she needed just as much as air – even as it unsettled her. It didn’t seem right. He still thought she was Drusilla as he nuzzled against her and babbled in a voice too soft for anyone but her to hear. She’d mocked him when he’d come back to Sunnydale after Dru left him, even though she knew how much it hurt to lose someone you loved.

But by then, - because of what she’d gone through with Angel - she’d firmly believed vampires couldn’t love and had been disgusted that Spike would dare to act like his feelings for his crazy ex had been anything important. But now she knew. Dru had been everything to him. Lover/mother/child/charge/owner and she’d just… abandoned him. Like a service dog not just retired, but tossed out into the street to live as a stray. It couldn’t have been the first time he’d felt abandoned, but it had been the most devastating.

Buffy could relate. Her father had thrown her away, and Angel…. _God, we’ve even been abandoned by the same person,_ she thought. Even without all of the baggage caused by the ritual, the two of them really were a mess.

She rinsed and dried off before sprinkling herself with baby powder to further mute her scent. Then she got dressed in some freshly washed pajamas before walking to Dawn’s room and peeking in. Spike was on her sister’s bed, his coat draped over him like a blanket while the teenager sat on the edge and lightly stroked his hair. Someone had put his arm in a sling and his feet had been loosely wrapped with gauze. The skin was completely gone, leaving a horrifying mess of black and red muscle tissue interspersed with the white of exposed bone.

She fought the urge to open a vein for a him again. They’d already given him a pint of her blood and all of the human in the fridge. Giles was out getting more.

“Can you watch over him for a few more minutes?” she asked quietly when Dawn looked up at her.

She nodded, and Buffy turned away, making a brief stop in her own room before going down the stairs. She looked at the piece of paper she’d retrieved and dialed the number on it.

“Hello?” the voice at the other end said, sounding tired. She’d forgotten how late it was. She’d probably woken him.

“Hey, Ben, it’s Buffy,” she said, her voice sounding hoarse and strange to her ears. “I… I’m sorry it’s so late, but….” She took a deep breath before continuing. “We’re not fine. We’re really, really not fine.”

**…**

Buffy slipped back up the steps and into her room, grabbing one of her knives and holding it in her hand like a comfort object. She shouldn’t, she knew that. Giving too much blood would just make her weak. _It’s… it’s just in case. He’s still in pretty bad shape. What if he starts convulsing again?_

She took a deep breath and went to Dawn’s room. Her sister quietly stood up and walked over to her and gave her a hug.

“I’m sorry, Buffy,” she whispered. “When I saw…. I’m sorry. I thought it was you.”

“It’s okay,” Buffy whispered back, stroking her sister’s hair. Her sister, who was supposed to be some kind of key. Who she’d almost betrayed while Spike had let himself be badly hurt to protect her. “The things I’d been thinking of....” She trailed off with a shudder. “Go on to my room for tonight. I promise I won’t do anything to hurt him. I just… I just want to take care of him. For, for the baby, you know?”

Dawn pulled back enough to study her before nodding slowly. “Okay.”

Once she had left the room, Buffy carefully got into the bed with Spike and curled around him, sticking her knife under the pillow. He snuggled close, his face pressed lightly to her throat. She heard a familiar crunch of bone and was just barely able to grab his hair in time to stop him from biting her.

“No, Spike,” she whispered, pulling his head back a little farther. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

She retrieved the knife and cut into the skin at her neck before pressing him back against her. It was just a little cut, letting out no more than a trickle. He didn’t seem to mind, though, nuzzling in and lapping at her neck, as if it was more about the comfort of the action and taste than a desperate need. Buffy drifted off to sleep with him held safely in her arms.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue/situations taken from the episodes “No Place Like Home” and “Family”

Riley stood outside Buffy’s darkened house, clutching the bouquet of red roses bought from a twenty-four-hour grocery store. He was angry at Buffy – justifiably so, he thought – but he had to admit not everything that had happened between them had been her fault. A lot of it was because of that damn vampire and the ritual that Riley strongly suspected Spike had set up.

_That piece of filth loves my girlfriend,_ he thought in disgust. Spike loved Buffy… and Riley had felt for a long while now that Buffy didn’t love him. He wondered if the ritual would have worked for them. His trust in her had been… not quite broken, but very bent… by her knocking him out to take him to the doctor. But during the time of the ritual, he had trusted her, and he always wanted to protect her. If he’d been the one there instead of Spike, would Buffy be pregnant with his child now?

He didn’t think so. He’d been pretty sure even before the ritual that she didn’t love him. He wasn’t what she wanted, apparently. She wanted someone weaker than her. Someone _submissive_. He was weaker than her – she’d helped make him even more so – but he couldn’t bring himself to submit to her. Even though – God help him – he still loved her.

That’s what it all boiled down to. He loved her, and he didn’t want to lose her. He’d go up and surprise her with the flowers. He’d even apologize, even though he’d done nothing wrong. He took a deep breath to fortify himself, letting it out slowly before he approached the house and used the spare key to get in.

A soft snore caught his attention, and he peered into the living room. The upper hallway light was enough to reveal Giles asleep on the couch. Books and several pages of hand-written notes were scattered across the coffee table. Riley was glad to see the older man there. If the vampire in the basement tried anything, Giles could put a stop to it. He wouldn’t put it past the HST to get some of his demon friends to kill Joyce and Dawn. That loss would make Buffy even more emotionally vulnerable to him.

He went up the stairs as quietly as he could and opened the door to Buffy’s room. He opened his mouth to call out her name, then froze. There was bedding on the floor and the girl sprawled across the bed wasn’t his. Why was Dawn in Buffy’s room? Where was Buffy and why was there bedding on her floor? Spike couldn’t possibly have been sleeping _there_ could he? Even if Buffy had been driven insane by the ritual, Joyce never would have allowed such a thing. It was just… obscene.

Riley left the room and headed towards Dawn’s, the simmering anger he’d been feeling for a while now heading towards a boil. When he opened the door and looked inside, that rage skyrocketed past blazing fury and straight to eerily calm. Buffy was asleep on the bed, fully clothed with Spike curled up against her. Her hand was in his hair, seemingly encouraging the light sucking at her throat instead of trying to stop it.

The vampire shifted just enough that Riley could see _something._ He squinted – the light from the hall not quite enough – and pulled a penlight out of his pocket. Carefully aiming the beam so it didn’t hit their eyes, he looked at his girlfriend’s throat. There was a cut there, just big enough for him to see but small enough that the blood coming out was only a trickle. The light was just bright enough for him to make out the slight hickey surrounding it.

He turned around and walked out of the room, making a short stop to the kitchen to throw away the flowers before leaving the house. He calmly walked to the big tree in her yard and punched it until his knuckles bled. Then he punched it some more.

 

**…**

 

_She was solid and real in his arms, his dark princess, unconscious by his hand. He knew he should be focused only on her, but he couldn’t help glancing through the garden door._ He _was there, fighting with the girl._

_“God, he’s gonna kill her,” he said softly, watching as Angelus advanced towards her. He felt a moment of… concern for the girl. No. He shouldn’t worry about her, he needed to…. The Slayer’s form flickered and blurred, the sunlight becoming the moon while the woman in his arms became smaller and blonde._

_Drusilla was being backed towards the garden wall, helpless before her sire. He had to save her. Had to…. She changed again, once more the Slayer. He was supposed to push aside the worry, shrug, and take his dark goddess away. But when he looked down, she smiled sadly at him and faded away, leaving him alone. All alone and…._

 

**…**

 

Awareness brought with it several different sensations. His eyes itched and burned – especially the one the woman in red had punched – his arm and ribs ached, and his feet felt like they’d been dipped in acid. _That would be because they sorta were._ Overshadowing most of that, however, was a feeling of warmth and the taste of Buffy on his tongue. He was cuddled against her, her hand loosely in his hair and holding his head against her neck.

She was just holding him, not grabbing or lunging. He could handle that. He’d been able to tolerate her hugging him in his crypt and waking up to her curled against his back hadn’t been nearly as bad as when she’d pinned him down. He could feel the panic stirring sluggishly, but he was just too tired – both physically and emotionally – to feel it fully.

_Dru,_ he thought dully, the ache in his heart worse than any of the physical injuries. Of course she wouldn’t have come for him. It had all just been an elaborate little daydream he’d built in his head to keep himself in line. She was probably still down in South America, shagging any disgusting thing that would have her. Did she even know what was happening to him? Had her pixies whispered it in her ears? Would she care even if they had?

He could feel them, the tears threatening to fall from his aching eyes. _I’ve given that bloody bitch everything there is of me. No more. She can’t have…._ He swallowed back a yowl of pain as he deliberately kicked one foot with the other. No more tears for Dru. He was crying because his feet hurt like a wicked bitch, not because his sire was one.

The hand in his hair tightened slightly, pushing his face even closer to the Slayer’s neck. He nuzzled the warm skin and breathed in her scent. She didn’t smell quite the same, the scent of baby powder and Dawn’s products muffling her own enough that it wasn’t setting him off. In fact, the entire room…. _Dawn’s room,_ he realized suddenly. They’d put him in Dawn’s room, that’s why it didn’t smell like Buffy.

He hesitantly licked at the small wound at her throat, the anti-coagulant in his saliva combating the clotting that had already started. She still tasted fully like herself. Rich and sweet and almost fizzy with power and life. Still, the scent was just different enough he could pretend…. _No. I’m bloody well done pretending._ He was snuggled against the bloody Slayer, crying like a pathetic little bitch because his whole damsel-in-distress routine had ended with a rescue from the wrong sodding prince.

Buffy stirred suddenly, and the hand against the back of his head eased away, allowing him to pull back just enough to look at her. His vision was still blurry, but a lot better than it had been. He could see that she was gazing at him.

“Uh, hey,” she whispered. “You’re awake. Which you know, because you’re you and… um… you’re awake. And I’m babbling. Do… do you need me to leave?”

He stared into her eyes for several moments, trying to sort things out in his head. Now that she was awake, the panic was starting to rise from its quiet simmer. _Bugger this,_ he growled at himself, trying to force it down. He was not going to be ruled by his idiotic subconscious. Of course, it wasn’t as easy as all that, was it?

“No,” he whispered back, talking at full volume seeming wrong somehow. “But... am a bit peckish.”

It was a good way to get her out of the room and let him get himself sorted without actually sending her away. It also happened to be true.

“Okay. I’ll get you some blood,” she said quietly, starting to very carefully get up so she didn’t jostle him too much.

“Yeah, that’d be good too.”

She stared at him for a moment, her nose wrinkled cutely in confusion, before she suddenly understood what he meant. “Oh, right. Peop… _human_ food. I’ll fix you something.”

She managed to get out of the bed without causing him all that much pain, then left the room with a hesitant glance over her shoulder, leaving him all by himself. His sense of relief was mingled with the wish that she’d hurry back. He didn’t want to be alone.

 

**…**

 

_Food, food. Need to make some food,_ Buffy thought as she headed down the stairs. _Eggs are food. I can make eggs. And we still have a pineapple on the counter. I can cut that up for him._ _Oh, and…._

Instead of going straight to the kitchen, she knelt by the living room couch – giving the books and notes a brief glance – and gently shook Giles awake. She’d remembered that he’d planned to stay the night in case she needed anything. She felt a little bad about waking him, but this was important.

“What? What is it? What’s wrong?” Giles asked, fumbling for his glasses as he sat up.

“Sorry,” she said apologetically. “It’s just…. I’m making some stuff for Spike, and I don’t know how to do British people tea.”

“Ah. Yes. Given all he’s been through in the past week, forcing him to endure American tea would be quite inhumane,” Giles said, his voice completely serious.

They went to the kitchen together, Giles working on the tea while Buffy got things ready to make scrambled eggs. As she chopped up mushrooms and stirred eggs, her thoughts strayed towards the vampire curled up in her little sister’s bed. He’d been crying when she woke up. Had it been from pain? Or…. He’d known who she was. That she wasn’t Drusilla.

_Why is this bothering me?_ she wondered as she set aside the egg mixture to chop up the pineapple. She wanted to blame the ritual, but – considering it was the reason she’d bashed his head in and kept him prisoner for a while – she couldn’t imagine it making her feel like this. The fact that he had thought she was Dru and had been crying because she wasn’t didn’t affect the baby in any way.

He loved Dru. He loved the baby. And according to Giles, the stupid vampire even loved her. Or he had before everything she’d done to him. Did he still? Did she _want_ him to? _Can I even believe what Giles read about the ritual?_ she wondered. _‘Cause that stuff about me trusting and wanting to protect Spike is soo not true_. It was completely impossible _._ Wasn’t it? Except….

When Angelus had been trying to wake Acathla, she’d trusted Spike enough to take him into her home. She’d trusted him at least a little ever since that truce. He’d left her to battle Angelus alone, but their deal had been that he would help and keep her from having to fight both Angelus and Drusilla.

He’d done that. Sticking around to help her fight her battles hadn’t been part of it. So even after all that had gone down that night, part of her had still trusted him. She hadn’t bothered to have him disinvited, not even after he’d gone to the house after Drusilla had dumped him.

As for feeling protective.... Spike was _hers_ , and had been since their first fight. Her nemesis, her… her partner, in a deadly dance that she reluctantly admitted she had enjoyed. She’d taunted and teased him when they’d first found out he couldn’t hurt humans, but at the same time, she’d been furious with whoever had done it. They’d made him helpless, and part of her had wanted to protect him ever since.

And on top of all of the confusing thoughts and feelings regarding Spike, she still had to find out what was wrong with her mother and what it meant that Dawn was some kind of key. And then there was Riley….

Buffy took a deep breath and forced the thoughts from her head. There was so much going on her life right now, if she didn’t stop and focus, she’d get lost in it all. Right now, she had an injured and pregnant vampire to feed. Her mind firmly on her task, she tossed the top and rind of the pineapple into the trash, never even noticing the roses.

 

**…**

 

Spike had gotten pretty skilled at maneuvering about with non-functional legs. Managing it with legs that worked but badly injured feet and one broken arm was apparently a very different skillset. It took him a while, but he did finally manage to get himself more or less upright against the headboard. Various bits of him throbbed with pain, but he’d done it.

Of course, that success had pulled him from his half-asleep stupor and left him with nothing to do but think. Buffy had put him in Dawn’s room and had done all she could to muffle her own scent. Why had she done that? Didn’t matter to the sprog any where he got his kip or what the Slayer smelled like.

For that matter, why the bloody hell had she even been in the room with him? She should have been snuggled down in her own bed, not curled around him, letting him nuzzle a cut on her neck. That was the weirdest part of all. She’d been giving him her blood a lot since the ritual, but this had been different. No cutting her hand and bleeding into a cup or desperately making him feed from her wrist. It had been almost like she was trying to comfort him.

_Why would she…?_ His thought was cut off by the Slayer coming in through the open door. He’d been so lost in his own head, he hadn’t even sensed her approach. She smiled nervously at him and set the tray on the nightstand. There were two mugs, a plate of scrambled eggs and toast, and a bowl of….

He snagged a fresh pineapple chunk and popped it into his mouth, just barely keeping himself from moaning like a forty-year-old virgin in the middle of their first shag. Before all this, he might have played that up, but now… Well, it would just be embarrassing and uncomfortable, wouldn’t it?

He ate a couple more chunks before picking up the mug of blood and downing it in a few long swallows. The entire time, the Slayer fidgeted while not quite looking at him. Was she feeling awkward about the whole “cuddling a vampire and letting him suck on her neck like a babe at its mother’s teat” thing? Because that had been all her. She would probably find a way to blame him, anyway. _Probably what’s on her mind right now,_ he thought darkly. _How can I pin this all on Spi-_

“Giles found out some stuff,” she suddenly blurted. “About the ritual.”

Spike just stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out her mood. She seemed almost… shy. Maybe a little embarrassed. Because of what she’d done, or whatever it was that Giles had discovered?

She opened her mouth, then snapped it closed again before saying anything. “He says…. Well, you see… there are these…. You know what, he has notes downstairs. I’ll go get them.”

She darted out of the room before Spike had a chance to respond. He just shook his head and put the empty mug back on the tray before starting in on the eggs. It was a little bit awkward with his right hand, but he managed. He was exhausted enough that eating and thinking at the same time seemed like too much effort, so he put his thoughts on the back burner. Slayer wasn’t too bad at cooking. Not when it came to eggs and toast at least.

Finding notes, however, didn’t seem to be one of her finer talents. By the time she finally came back to the room, all that was left was the tea and a few pineapple chunks.

“This is pretty good,” he said after his first sip, pleasantly surprised.

“Oh, that’s because Giles made it,” she said, setting a thin stack of papers on the bed next to him. “But he said he’d teach me how make it like that after we’ve both had some more sleep.”

“Why?” Spike asked, ignoring the papers for now. Given the way his eyes felt, he doubted he’d be able to read any of it just yet. What really mattered was that she’d given them to him. She wasn’t trying to hide anything. It was a little odd that she hadn’t just flat-out told him what they said, but given the way her lot tended to garble things, that was probably for the best. “Why do you even care? Sprog doesn’t give a crap if the tea is actually good or not.”

Buffy shrugged uncomfortably. “You… you stopped me,” she said quietly. “You stopped me from giving up Dawn, even though it hurt you to do it. And then....” She shuddered and flinched slightly, as if reliving a particularly nasty memory. “God, Spike, Xander actually threw up after we got you into the car, and Tara was crying. You let yourself get tortured to keep my sister safe. That deserves a hell of a lot more than learning how to make tea the way you like it.”

He studied her in silence, drinking more of the tea while she continued to fidget and just generally look uncomfortable.

“Okay, so, you look really tired, and I know I am,” she said. “So, I’m just going to go to my room and sleep for a while.” She wrinkled her nose. “Probably on the floor again, since it doesn’t really seem right to kick Dawn out of the bed.”

“Bring your bedding in here,” he said, the words slipping out before he could really think about them. She stared at him like he was crazy, and he looked away. “I… Bein’ around you isn’t exactly the best experience right now, but….” He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Don’t exactly fancy being alone right now, yeah? With your mum bein’ sick an’ all, wouldn’t want to wake her if I need somethin’, right? So… just bring it all in here and sprinkle it with more of that baby powder.”

“Yeah… yeah, I can do that,” the Slayer said, her voice sounding a little odd, like she was forcing it past a lump in her throat.

She slipped back out of the room, leaving Spike alone with his thoughts. He didn’t want to think. He hurt, both inside and out, and all he wanted to do was curl up and go back to sleep. Sleep sounded so wonderful that just the thought of it almost made him start crying again.

He took another deep breath, letting the soothing sensation of airflow calm him. _Right then, no more of this tonight._ He finished off the last of the tea and pineapple chunks before putting Giles’s notes on the nightstand for later. Then he got as comfortable as he could without jostling too much and drifted off to sleep.

 

**…**

 

“So… you’ll be doing this trance thing by sitting on your arse and meditating?” Spike asked dubiously.

Buffy opened her eyes and glared up at him. Her blankets and pillows had been shoved under Dawn’s bed, and she was sitting on the floor in a circle of incense and sand. Today, she was tackling the problem of her mother’s illness. She’d gone to the Magic Box with Giles that morning for a Scooby meeting and had brought up her idea that someone was trying to get to her by making her mom sick. She hadn’t said anything yet about Dawn and her supposed keyness. _Today is Mom,_ she told herself firmly. _Tomorrow I’ll figure out what to do about Dawn._ _You have to just do this one day at a time, or you’re going to go crazy, you know that, Buffy._

She shook her head to clear it of those thoughts and sighed. God, she was tired. Even without all she’d been dealing with, there was the fact that she just hadn’t slept well last night. Or at least, not after she’d moved to the floor. Every little pain sound and nightmare-induced whimper from Spike had pulled her from sleep.

“Yes, Spike. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m trying to go into a trance by sitting on my ‘arse’ and meditating,” she said through gritted teeth. “And for that, I need _quiet_.”

He snorted, clearly unimpressed. “What you need is a meditation technique that isn’t gonna take a million years. You’re not exactly a sit and be still kind of girl, Summers. You need active meditation.”

She opened her mouth to argue, then realized he actually had a really good point. “You know how to do active meditation?” This time, it was her turn to be dubious.

She knew that Spike wasn’t really a drooling idiot, but the thought of him actually knowing stuff was still a bit mind boggling. Especially him knowing anything about meditation. He may have been having a love affair with words compared to her, but he was just as much Action Girl as she was. Or, well, Action Boy in his case, even if he _was_ the one carrying their kid.

“Dru….” He stopped and looked away. Buffy had the uncomfortable feeling he was trying not to cry again. After a few moments, he looked back at her, seemingly composed. “Dru was into all that mystical mumbo-jumbo. Sometimes she’d have me help her with a ritual or two. Hell, I was the one who did the ritual to restore her. So not exactly clueless when it comes to meditation and the like.” He titled his head slightly and studied her for a quiet moment. “Watcher ever teach you any exercises where you stand still and act like you’re fighting?”

“Yeah, he did,” Buffy said grumpily, wondering why Giles had never taught her active meditation. It was always “stare at this crystal” or “sit there and be still.”

Spike shifted slightly and began tapping out a rhythm on the nightstand. “Get on your feet, close your eyes, and start doing one of those exercises.”

Buffy got up and stretched in place before she broke out into a series of kicks and punches, her eyes closed. Even if Spike’s idea didn’t work, she could use the mindless activity to calm her nerves. She faltered slightly when she realized Spike’s tapping matched her heartbeat perfectly, but recovered herself and kept going.

“That’s it, Slayer,” he said, his voice oddly soothing. “Feel the rhythm of your body. Find the contrast. That place of stillness inside.”

She focused on the pull and stretch of her muscles, on the beating of her heart and the matching rhythm. She was motion, she was action, she was…. Stillness at her very core, her inner self quiet and relaxed.

She suddenly stopped moving – Spike’s tapping stopping a split second later – and snapped her eyes open. The room around her flickered strangely, going back and forth from her sister’s bedroom to a storage room. She glanced down at herself and saw a crackling, red energy surrounding her. At first, she didn’t know what it was, then she looked at Spike. He was surrounded by a similar energy field, but his was blue. Tendrils of purple streaked all through him, connected to a weak and struggling purple glow centered around his navel.

She was seeing the effects of the ritual on them. The purple glow had to be their baby. A chill shivered through her. She’d known all the stress and pain Spike was enduring couldn’t be good for the baby, but she hadn’t realized quite how close they’d come to losing it. They could still lose it if she didn’t start taking better care of Spike. With the way it kept draining his energy, they’d probably lose him too.

“Slayer…? Buffy?” Spike said, his voice oddly distorted and echoing. “Need to go on and see to your mum, yeah?”

She blinked at him. Right. Her mom. She needed to look at her mom while the trance was still active. She turned and left the room, feeling almost like she was swimming through the air. She went down the stairs where her mother and sister had been when she’d gone up to start the trance. Dawn was flickering in and out of existence, but her mother…. There was absolutely nothing different about her mother.

“Buffy, are you alright?” Mom asked. Like Spike, her voice was strange and echoed.

“Yeah. I’m… I’m fine,” she said numbly, turning and going back up the stairs. The trance faded as she returned to Dawn’s room, throwing her back into normal reality.

“What’d you see?” Spike asked.

“I… I saw our baby,” she blurted out, not ready to talk about her mother yet. “It, it’s really in there. I mean, I kinda knew that, but I actually _saw_ it. Or, well, this purple glow.”

“Huh.” There was an oddly neutral tone to his voice. Was he… jealous? He was the one carrying the baby. There were a lot of things he’d get to experience that she wouldn’t. He had no right to be jealous. “And your mum?”

She swallowed hard and approached the bed. “Can… can I sit down?” she asked in a small voice. He hesitated for a long moment, then grudgingly nodded, wincing slightly as he shifted to make more room for her. She felt horrible for asking and for causing him pain, but she needed to be near someone right now. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled as she sat down. “I…. There was nothing, Spike. No magic. I don’t understand. If it isn’t magic, what’s wrong with her?”

“Slay… Buffy.” He slowly reached out with his uninjured arm and awkwardly patted her shoulder. “It’s not right, and it’s bloody well not fair, but sometimes… sometimes mums just get sick. They should be immune to it, but they aren’t. They’re just people, and sometimes… sometimes they get sick.”

There was pain in his voice, and Buffy was pretty sure it wasn’t just because he liked her mother. Had his mom had been sick? Sometimes she forgot he hadn’t just appeared full grown out of the air as a vampire. He’d been human once, and he’d had a mother. He sounded so understanding. So… compassionate. It had to be something from his human life. His mother must have gotten sick. Had she died? Was her mom going to die?

Buffy put her hands over her face and cried, her fear and confusion and the feeling of being overwhelmed flowing out of her in an unstoppable torrent. She dropped her walls and just let go for once, allowing herself be a scared little girl while the vampire in her sister’s bed gently patted her back.

 

**…**

 

Willy’s bar was a dive, but Riley didn’t care. He also didn’t care that it was full of HSTs, some of whom would recognize and hate him. Let them hate him. Let them try to take him on. He didn’t need whatever Walsh had done to him to take out monsters. He was strong on his own merit.

“Drinking alone?” a woman’s voice asked. “That’s never a good sign.”

Riley turned just enough to see a beautiful woman with long dark hair approaching him. He knew what she was. Another fucking vampire. What was the appeal? Angel, Dracula, and now Spike.

“So I’ve heard,” he said, taking another sip of his drink. “Why don’t I buy you something, and then neither one of us will have that problem?”

“I don’t know. This place is such a dive. We could go somewhere else….” She looked him up and down, eyes dark with all kinds of desires. “Someplace more… private.”

He opened his mouth to tell her he wasn’t interested. That he had a girl and that he didn’t date vampires, but he stopped. He suddenly needed to know. What was it like? Why was Buffy so drawn to the vampires? He could find out, he realized. He could go with her, let her have a taste, then stake her. Then he’d _know_ what it was he couldn’t give Buffy, and there’d be one less vampire hunting the population.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I think I’d like that. Let’s go someplace private… and you can have your drink.”

Her eyes widened slightly as she understood his meaning. She knew that he knew what she was. He slammed back the rest of his drink and followed her out into the night.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Litany Against Fear belongs to Frank Herbert. I just tweaked it a bit for Spike’s use.

The cemetery was quiet as Buffy and Riley patrolled side-by-side. It should have been at least a little bit romantic, a nice stroll in the dark with her boyfriend. Instead, it was tense and awkward. Honestly, she would have rather been patrolling with Spike, and would have been if he’d been in any condition for it. His feet were still oozing, foot-shaped blobs of healing muscle tissue.

Buffy shuddered at the memory of how’d they’d looked when she’d changed the non-stick bandages that morning. He was getting better, but it all looked so raw and horrible. She had wanted to give him more of her blood, to speed up the healing, but she wasn’t a never-ending supply of nummy hemoglobin.

She was already craving rare steak the way Spike had been craving pineapples, though just the thought of it made her want to vomit. The sort of purple-ish red center of a rare steak and the scent of more or less raw meat. It was too much of a reminder of what Spike had gone through to keep Dawn safe.

 _Dawn,_ she thought guiltily. It had been two days since she’d done the trance, but she still hadn’t told her sister – or anyone else – yet, though she had told the whole gang that the woman in red was looking for some kind of key.  

Spike hadn’t been happy with that decision, but she’d managed to convince him not to tell Dawn himself. They needed to be able to give the girl more information than just, “hey, some monk said you were a mystical thingy and a trance said you aren’t real.”  The vampire had grudgingly agreed with her, though he’d muttered pointedly about what could happen if people were kept in the dark about things involving themselves.

She sighed and rubbed absently at her neck for a moment before letting her hand fall away. The wound had long since healed, but she could still remember how it had felt. She’d been fed on before. The Master, Angel, Dracula, even Spike when she’d forced him to take her blood that night in the crypt. This had been different. It had made her feel… strangely feminine. Almost maternal.

She bit her lip suddenly and glanced down at her chest. The baby was half human. That meant it would need milk. She’s always heard breastmilk was best. Could she…? Most of her thoughts about the baby had been about protecting it, fueled by the ritual. Now she was thinking about it as just Buffy. And just Buffy apparently found the idea of holding her own baby both terrifying and really appealing. She wanted to do more than just hold it, once it was born.

Maybe magic could help? _Not Willow, though_ , she decided. Will was her best friend and all, but her magic wasn’t always reliable. Buffy _so_ did not want to end up as some kind of giant boob monster. She didn’t really want to admit it – even to herself – but there was also the fact that she was upset that Willow had done nothing to help her fight against the horrible things the ritual had made her do. _Tara,_ she decided, pushing the thought of Willow from her mind. She’d talk to Tara about it.

She was pulled from her thoughts by movement at her side. Riley lifting his hand to stroke her hair. It was normal for their patrols. Little stolen moments of contact. Kisses and caresses. The hand on her shoulder drifted up, brushing along her neck as he pushed her hair aside. He leaned in, his lips coming close to her skin. Instead of melting against him, she pulled away, uncomfortable with the contact.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding almost accusatory.

“I… I’m just….” She trailed off, not sure what to say.

“Thinking about him?” Riley asked. There was something odd in his tone, like chocolate that was eighty percent cocoa and laced with cyanide. Dark and bitter and poisonous. “Your little pet vampire? About how it felt to have his mouth on your throat?”

She stared at him incredulously. “ _What_? Why would you just assume…?” Okay, so she _had_ let Spike suck on her, and she kind of had been thinking about it, but Riley had no way of knowing that. And he made it sound… dirty.

“Don’t lie to me, Buffy. I _saw_ you, all snuggled up, necking with that _thing_.”

“What?” She felt lost and bewildered. What was he talking about? He couldn’t possibly have seen…. “When could you…?”

He laughed humorlessly and shook his head. “I came to your house after your rescue mission. To _apologize_ ,” he spat the word out like it was rancid. “I even bought you flowers.”

“You came into my house in the middle of the night?” Buffy felt numb and a little queasy as she stared at the man she’d been dating for a year. She felt like she didn’t know him anymore. Had she _ever_ really known him?

“I was trying to surprise you. Then I saw what you were doing.” He made it sound like she’d been the one whose behavior had been questionable.

“He’d been hurt protecting my –” She stopped herself before she could reveal anything about Dawn. She realized in that moment that she didn’t trust him. Spike knew, but it was Riley who felt like he’d be a threat – “the key from that woman. It wasn’t like it was sex.”

“No.” He laughed again, a short bark of sound. “I know that. It’s not sex, but it _is_ intimate.”

“Well, yeah, but, but it _wasn’t_ like that! It wasn’t romantic. He was hurt and he needed me. Like, like medicine.” She knew she was reaching a bit with that. It felt wrong somehow, dismissing something that really had been incredibly intimate as basic medical care. The truth was, Spike would have been physically fine without the blood from that cut. He hadn’t gotten enough from it to help that much with the healing. “I was just an IV bag or something.”

“No, Buffy.  It wasn’t that clinical, and you know it. The feel of a vampire sucking down your blood, your vitality, your… your _essence_. Needing you. The way you’ve _never_ needed me.”

Chills and heat chased each other through Buffy’s body. No way had he gotten all of that from watching her with Spike. That was too close. Too raw. Too _personal_. Her eyes drifted to the bandage around his arm as if they were being tugged through molasses. She’d seen it earlier but had dismissed it as some kind of training injury.

She snatched the strip of cloth away, feeling sick at the sight of the fang marks. At least two sets, though one looked odd, like a vampire had perfectly set their fangs into another’s bite. She reached up, feeling like she was in a terrible dream, and pulled down the collar of his turtleneck sweater. Fading bruises around bite marks.

“My god, Riley,” she whispered, too stunned and furious for full volume to escape her throat. “What have you done?”

“The same as you.”

“It’s not the same! It’s totally not the same, can’t you see that?” Why couldn’t he see it? Spike was as safe as it was possible for a vampire to be. He was muzzled. He couldn’t bite or hurt anyone. It was like comparing hand-feeding a wild tiger to putting down kibble for a house cat. “Where are you even finding these vampires? Are you chaining them up in the caves or something?”

God, she’d thought it was sick when she was chaining Spike up to keep the baby safe. Was Riley doing something like that to random vampires just to get his rocks off?

He actually looked vaguely uncomfortable, as if he was maybe starting to see the differences. “No. No, it’s not like that, Buffy. There’s this place you can go…. The vampires don’t kill, they just take money to bite you.”

 _For money?_ she thought, horrified. He was _paying_ vampires to bite him, like going to a whorehouse?

“I get it now,” he said, and she realized he wasn’t seeing the difference at all. “I understand what you get from them.” His face contorted into a bitter smile. He didn’t seem to actually be listening to her. “The feel of it, the rush. There’s nothing else like it. Like I said, I understand now. I get why the vampires get you so hot and bothered. Why _I’ve_ never been enough for you.”

“You... you really think that? How could you think that?” She wanted to shake him, to scream at him. God, it was all falling apart. She’d tried so hard to save it, but it hadn’t been enough. She was the one who was never enough. “How could you do this?”

“You have no right to judge me, not after what I saw with Spike. What’s good for the goose, right?”

“You… _idiot_!” she hissed, pulling back hard on her strength as she slapped him. “How could you do something so, so stupidly reckless?”

“You did it!” he shouted, eyes flashing with anger as he raised his hand to his face.

“First off, Spike is carrying my kid, remember? The kid I _have_ to protect? You do remember, right? I know you’ve been having your own issues, but so have I, if you could take one goddamn second to look beyond yourself and your need to _feel like a man_.” A tiny part of her felt guilty for tearing into him like this, but the rest felt wonderfully, gloriously _free_.

“Damn it, Buffy, I -”

“Secondly, he’s _chipped_.” She charged right on through his words, not even bothering to listen. “He can’t bite me, and I’m stronger than he is. I have complete control of how much he takes from me. Your vampire whores, though? They could drain you dry easily, leaving you dead or worse. Did you even think of that while you were getting your fix? You could have been turned, and we would have trusted you. We’d let you in without a thought. You’ve put my friends in danger. My mom. My _sister_! She’s a kid, Riley! She let _Harmony_ in. She’d definitely have invited _you_.”

The queasiness was getting worse. The evil, soulless vampire with every reason to hate her had kept her sister safe, retreating into a temporary fantasy world he’d known would hurt him in order to keep the secret. The man she thought she’d loved – who said he loved her – had put her in danger from jealousy and a stupid inferiority complex.

She couldn’t look at him anymore. She was either going to hit him again or throw up on his shoes. Maybe both. She turned around and started walking.

“Buffy, wait!” Riley called after her. “I was just trying to understand you! You always push me away, and now you’re running again. Don’t do this.”

“It’s over. I’m done. _We’re_ done.”

“You can’t mean that!” he yelled. “You know you don’t mean that!”

She continued walking, forcing back the tears as she left him behind, calling out her name. She didn’t hate him – not really – but she definitely didn’t trust him enough to let him see her cry.

 

**…**

 

 _I must not be bored,_ Spike thought to himself, rewording Frank Herbert’s Litany Against Fear while staring blankly up at Dawn’s ceiling. _Boredom is the mind-killer. Boredom is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my boredom. I will…. I will bloody well cheerfully strangle someone for a plate of kippers and eggs._ That wasn’t actually saying much, considering all of the people he’d killed, but still and all….

He sighed and rubbed at his achy, itchy eyes. The Slayer blood was definitely helping him heal. His arm was out of the sling, though it still ached a bit along with his ribs and the cheekbone that the bitch in red had broken. His feet were still in pretty bad shape, but at least he had toes again – skinless like everything else below his ankles at the moment – instead of just stubs of bone.

He really should be sleeping right now to help with the healing – especially for his eyes – but the house was too quiet. It was one of the Slayer’s long days at uni, so she and the Bit were both still in classes. Joyce had insisted on going shopping. He hadn’t thought that was a particularly good idea with her headaches and all, but she was a grown woman. She could do whatever she bloody well liked, couldn’t she? Sure enough wasn’t his place to be sticking his fingers into her business.

He didn’t like being alone at the best of times. Injured in the Slayer’s home the day after she’d had some kind of spat with lover boy – at least he assumed something like that had happened. Chit had come home steaming mad and smelling of him – was far from ideal. He felt vulnerable, and didn’t even have someone to snark at to distract himself from it.

 _Harris should be here soon._ That was an odd bit of fallout from the situation. He’d actually been _enjoying_ spending time with the boy. _How the hell did that happen? Boy’s a snotty brat who kept me prisoner in that horror of a basement he used to live in. Was a time I wouldn’t even have thought him worth biting, me, not even fresh out of the labs and starving._

He shook his head, still trying to wrap his mind around the strange friendship that was starting to form. Harris had started picking Dawn up from school and would usually pop in for a visit, and he was actually looking forward to it. And to kicking his arse at one of those multi-player games. He was pretty sure his eyes and arm were just healed up enough to manage it.

Despite his unease at the thought of sleeping while alone, he’d nearly drifted off when he heard the front door aggressively shoved open before being slammed shut. Heavy footsteps stormed up the stairs, a familiar and extremely unwelcome scent driven before them. Then the door to the bedroom burst open, and Finn stared at him in a towering rage.

“Forgot your girl’s schedule, did you?” Spike said with a raised brow as he sat up. The movement was quicker than was comfortable, but there was no way he was staying flat on his back like a helpless git with Cardboard in the room. “She’s still –”

The other man covered the distance between door and bed in an instant and grabbed a fistful of Spike’s shirt. Spike bit back a scream of pain as he was pulled to his feet, then dragged across the room and slammed into the wall.

“Buffy is _mine_ , understand?” Finn snarled.

“Don’t think she has your name printed on her, but don’t matter much, does it?” Spike gritted out through the pain. Screaming agony coursed up his legs from his abused feet. God, it was almost as bad as being back in that sodding basin. “Don’t want the bloody bitch.”

“Good boy, you keep thinking that way. This will help.” Finn plunged the stake into Spike’s chest, directly into the heart.

Pain could stretch an instant out into an eternity, and at first, that’s what Spike thought was happening. But no, because Harris was suddenly there, pulling the ex-commando off of him, and that took time. Time that should have rendered his magnificent self into dust. The boy punched the overgrown wanker in the face hard enough to leave him shaking his own hand in pain, then knelt down in front of Spike.

“Why aren’t you dust?” Harris asked, staring at the stake. “Not that it would be a good thing – I can’t believe I just said that – but how aren’t you dustpan kibble right now?”

“It’s plastic, made up to look like real wood,” Finn said, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. “We used them all the time on captive HSTs to practice staking techniques.”

“Dude, that’s just… that’s really messed up,” Harris said with a look of disgust at the other human. Spike was used to seeing that particular look directed at himself. It was weird seeing it used on his behalf. “Why would you even _keep_ something like that? And using it on someone who’s hurt and can’t fight back?”

“I had to teach him a lesson. Show him that at least one person hasn’t been taken in by his twisted little game.” Finn strode forward, pushing Harris aside to grab the stake and yank it out. “I love Buffy too much to hurt her child. But once that isn’t an issue anymore?” His eyes narrowed. “You’d better leave town, or next time, the stake will be real.”

It took Spike a minute to process the man’s words, exhaustion and pain making his thoughts sluggish. “What the sodding hell are you on about? Twisted little game? What, you think I somehow set things up so the Slayer would knock me down, force herself on me, and turn me into her personal sprog garden?” Finn’s expression clearly said that was exactly what he thought. Daft git. “Why would I do something that idiotic?”

“Because you love her.” Finn’s face twisted up with bitterness. “You wanted to prove to her that she loved you, so you set up the ritual. But it backfired. You’re such a pathetic waste of space that _she_ dominated _you_ instead of the other way around. But you worked around that, didn’t you? Made Buffy think she raped you.”

“I didn’t _make_ the Slayer think anything,” Spike snapped. He may have had a soft spot for the clearly insane, but Finn’s particular brand of crazy wasn’t triggering it. Buffy was the _slayer_ , not some doll. You couldn’t just pop her head open and put in thoughts scribbled on sticky notes. “What happened, happened.” There were sounds in the hallway, like someone had dropped something, but Spike didn’t have enough focus to really pay attention. “And I bloody well do _not_ love the Slayer.”

“Uh, Spike….” Harris trailed off with a slight wince as he stood up. “Buffy didn’t tell you, did she?”

“Buffy didn’t tell who what now?” the girl herself asked, coming into the room. “And who dropped a gla-”

She stopped in mid-word, going pale with fear and anger as what she was seeing registered. Spike on the floor with a hole in his chest while Harris and Finn stood nearby, the latter clutching a stake.

“It’s plastic, Buffy!” Harris called out hastily, to Spike’s disappointment.

 _Why can’t that bloody overprotectiveness work in my favor for once?_ He would have loved to have seen the Slayer rip the tin soldier to little bits. Maybe let him have the blood. _Or not. No telling what’s still in the blighter’s system._

Buffy didn’t say a word. She marched over to Finn, grabbed him by the arm, and stormed out of the room with him in tow.

“Oh boy,” Harris sighed out. “To think I used to admire that guy.” He shook his head and looked down at Spike. “Let’s get you more comfortable. Then.... Yeah, we’re gonna need to talk.”

 

**…**

 

Buffy shoved Riley out of her house and followed him, slamming the door shut behind her. She was beyond furious.

“What the _hell_ is wrong with you, Riley?” she yelled, clenching her fists in an effort not to punch her former boyfriend. Punching him sounded really, really good, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop once she started. Part of her was okay with that. “It’s bad enough that you just waltzed right into my house again – _after_ I broke up with you –”

“You didn’t mean that, Buffy,” he interrupted. “Not really. Spike’s got you confused, that’s all.”

“I meant every damn word! I mean this, too! What you did…. That was just…. That was _sick_. He can’t fight back, he’s still recovering from being _tortured_ , and he’s freakin’ _pregnant_! What about any of that made you think it was okay to put him through even more?”

“Damn it, Buffy, I’m doing this for _you_ ,” Riley exploded. “Everyone else is caught up in that damn vampire’s game. He wants you to think you raped him so you’ll feel bad and fall in love with him.”

Buffy hadn’t thought she could be any more disgusted or furious. She was wrong. Her vision actually went red for a moment. She grabbed him and flung him down to the ground. straddling his hips and pinning his shoulders. He struggled, but it was nothing to her. She was the Slayer, and he was just a human. She let him really feel that for the first time.

“Get up!” she spat. “Just try it, Mr. Big and Manly. Get out from under me and _get up_. Come on, you’re a _man_ aren’t you? Fight me off!” He tried. He bucked and twisted, but she kept him down easily, holding back just enough of her strength to keep from breaking him. Her gut roiled with self-loathing and hate for the man beneath her as fear started to fill his eyes, but she had to make him understand. “Are you scared of me, Riley? Spike was when I did this to him. Tell me to stop!”

“Buffy, stop!” He looked sick and angry as he said the words.

She just laughed darkly and shook her head. “Spike wanted me to stop. He yelled at me. Called me all kinds of names, some of them not in either version of English. He just wanted me to _stop_. I didn’t.”

She moved her hands from his shoulders, sliding them down his arms with enough pressure to bruise. His big, “manly” arms, damaged by a little girl. She grabbed his wrists and forced them up above his head.

“I had him down like this,” she continued softly, her voice disturbingly intimate. “And I touched him. Not a lot, really, but the spell made him sensitive to my touch. Do you remember Anya telling us about that? I do. Just a whisper of my skin against his, and the spell made sure I could _use_ him. I made his body want me, but _he_ didn’t.”

The words poured out of her like infected pus from a wound. “I remember a lot of things. I remember him trying to hit me to get me off of him. I remember how he felt underneath me. He was still trying to get away even while his body responded to me. I remember how easy it was to hold him down. How _powerful_ it made me feel. He’s a vampire, but even with all of his strength, I could ride him like a tame little pony, and there was nothing he could do until I was _done_ with him. And you know what’s sick?”

She laughed again, and this time there was a hysterical edge to it. “What’s really fucked up? It was the best goddamn sex of my life. I didn’t have to hold back, or act like some delicate little thing.” She released his arms. “Do you _get it_ now, Riley? Do you _understand_? You like to throw those words around, don’t you?”

She got off of him then, feeling both sick and strangely lighter, as if a weight had been lifted.

“I do understand,” he said, disgust and bitterness heavy in his voice. “I understand why I’ve never felt like I was with a real woman with you. I thought all this time that it was something wrong with me, but, no. It’s _you_.” The utter contempt in his voice stabbed at her, little maggots of doubt crawling into the wound as his eyes blamed her for everything. “You want someone who will be a submissive little girl to your big strong man. I love you, Buffy. Even after everything you’ve done, I still love you, but I won’t be that for you.”

“Go away, Riley,” she said, suddenly exhausted. The tiny hummingbird of love that had still been in her heart for Riley had died while she held him down. She’d felt it fluttering weakly, and now it was still and dead. She’d thought she knew all about love turning to hate, but with Angel, she’d let herself blame the lost soul. With Riley…. She felt like she’d never really known who he was. “Just… just go away.”

Her eyes were downcast as she went into the house, then closed as she shut the door behind her. When she opened them, she saw Xander sitting on the stairs. _Oh god, what did he hear?_ she wondered, suddenly terrified that she was about lose one of her best friends. Without a word, he stood up, walked down to her, and hugged her.

She leaned into him and just let him hold her. She knew he didn’t like demons – especially Spike – but Xander had really stepped up during all of this.

“It’s going to be okay, Buffy,” he said quietly. It was good to have friends who had her back.

“Thanks,” she whispered, giving him a gentle squeeze before stepping back. “You’ve restored my faith in men.”

“Does that mean you won’t end up in a lesbian three-way with Willow and Tara?” She couldn’t help smiling at his expression of mock horror. “Truly, I have made the world a sadder place.”

“Sorry, Xander. I –” She stopped suddenly and frowned. “Where’s Dawn?”

Xander frowned as well, glancing around uneasily. “She said she was going to get a snack….” His eyes widened suddenly. “The hallway….”

He’d seen it too, the apple and glass of milk dropped on the floor near Dawn’s room. Buffy bolted up the stairs, frantically calling her sister’s name.

 

**…**

 

Spike was staring up at the ceiling again, but this time, he was far from bored. Harris had helped him to the bed and had explained about the ritual’s prerequisites while patching up the hole in his chest. He’d sent the boy downstairs to check on the Slayer. He had a lot to think about, and he didn’t particularly want company for it.

 _The submissive one has to love the dominant._ Harris had a truly idiotic sense of humor, but Spike didn’t think he was having him on. He glanced at the papers still stacked neatly on Dawn’s nightstand. It was probably all written down there. Buffy hadn’t told him, but she’d at least giving him the information in written form.

 _She’s all around you…._ Dru’s words in his head. In love with the Slayer. That was just… _wrong_. He was a sodding _vampire_. He _couldn’t_ be in love with the Slayer. It was sick. He’d thought only Angelus – with his magical detachable soul – was messed up enough for something like that. There had to be some mistake. Had to be.

He closed his eyes and took a breath, trying to sort himself out. He’d been attracted to the girl from the moment he’d first seen her dancing at the Bronze, but physical attraction and love weren’t the same thing.

She was a worthy foe, the Slayer, and he’d studied her obsessively. Even their first meeting at the club had been all about studying her. Watching her moves. Watching her slay a vampire. She’d been magnificent. And then he’d gone to her to help him save Dru from Angelus’s bug-shaggingly insane Acathla plot.

Instead of finding somewhere neutral to talk, she’d trusted him enough to invite him into her home. That had meant something to him, being trusted like that. Something inside of him had reached a sort of balance. And the tipping point had been watching her fight Angelus. If Dru hadn’t needed him – if he hadn’t _thought_ Dru needed him – he would have helped Buffy.

Could he have fallen in love with the Slayer? She was strong - not just physically - and spirited. Full of sass and vinegar. He’d always liked that. Had always loved their fights. She’d made him feel...alive. He remembered the other spell they’d been affected by. The feel of her in his arms, her mouth against his…. Her hands holding him down. Forcing him against the ground. He couldn’t….

He wrenched his thoughts away from that night with an effort that left him shaking and panting for unneeded air. No, he had to stop thinking about that. He had to figure this out. Why would the ritual have even worked? What about her did he supposedly love?

She held the fate of others in her hands and went out to fight monsters night after night, the weight of the world on her slender shoulders. She could be a right bitch at times, but she could also be caring. She was immature and far too old for her years. She could be both deep and unbelievably shallow. She was the light that haunted the darkness. She was a piece of poetry that had always called out to him on some level. Unfinished because she was still becoming who she was.

Oh, bloody hell! He’d fallen in love with Buffy. He could try to deny it – to believe that they’d just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and it had also happened to be when the ritual malfunctioned – or he could accept it. He never had been one for denying or running away from his feelings. A firm believer in free-range emotions, he was.

He didn’t want to love her, but at the time of the ritual, at least, he had. Did he still, after everything that had happened between them? The things she’d done to him? What about the things she’d done _for_ him? He was still trying to sort it all out when she came pounding up the steps, calling for Dawn.

 

**…**

 

 _Made Buffy think she raped you. What happened, happened._ The words wouldn’t leave her head. Dawn was sitting in the middle of her mother’s bed, hugging her knees and trying to make the words go away. They wouldn’t.

She’d thought she knew what had happened, for the most part. Spike and Buffy had had sex while under the influence of a ritual. She hadn’t known that Buffy had.... That Spike hadn’t…. No one had _told_ her. All the showers, the way Spike was kind of skittish around Buffy even though she’d hit him lots of times before and had even kept him prisoner for a while after he’d first been chipped. She should have figured it out.

 _Buffy raped Spike,_ she thought numbly. She fought with her sister a lot, but she loved her, looked up to her. Even with the way she’d been acting lately. How was she supposed to feel about this?

“ _Dawn_?” Her sister’s voice, calling out to her. “Dawn, where are you?”

She swallowed and hugged her knees tighter to her chest. Her sister was a rapist. Some weird ritual had made her do it, but still…. Her sister – practically a superhero – was a _rapist_. Was Buffy going to be put on some kind of watch list? Was her house going to be the rape house on Revello Dr.?

 _Don’t be stupid,_ she told herself in disgust. That was just for creepy pedos, wasn’t it? Spike was like, a bajillion years old. Besides, it had to be reported first, and she didn’t think that was going to happen.

A door opened and closed. Probably Buffy’s. Footsteps in the hall, then the knob started to turn and there was Buffy. Her sister. The rapist.

“I know what you did,” Dawn said in a small, childlike voice. She hated herself for sounding that way. For _feeling_ that way. The world had tilted, and everything was strange and scary. “To Spike. Riley said he made you think you’d…. But you _did_ , didn’t you?”

Buffy paled and swallowed convulsively like she was trying not to throw up. Her eyes suddenly seemed too large for her face, and she looked scared. Had Spike been scared when Buffy…?

“Oh god,” Buffy whispered, walking towards the bed. “Dawnie… I….”

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me?” Dawn demanded. “You… you’re a big stupid jerk face and you smell like a howler monkey, but you’re my _sister_. You’re a hero, not some skeevy rapist. That isn’t you. And, and I can’t help you with stuff if you don’t _tell_ me!”

Her sister’s face contorted, her mouth opening and closing a few times as she tried to find words. Dawn came to a decision. Everything was weird and skewed, but Buffy was still Buffy. A ritual had been making her do a bunch of horrible things against her will. That didn’t change who she was.

“Stupid Buffy,” she muttered, crawling across the bed to sit next to her. She punched Buffy in the arm with all of her strength, then hugged her. “We’re sisters. We fight, and you totally get on my nerves, but we stick together.”

“We are,” Buffy said, her voice strangely fierce. “We _are_ sisters, Dawn. And… there’s things I need to tell you. Important things, but not right now. Can you trust me to tell you when the time’s right?”

Dawn studied her with narrowed eyes. There were more things she hadn’t been told about? _Could_ she trust Buffy? She thought of all of the nights she’d slept in her sister’s room when she was younger, scared because Mom and Dad had been fighting.  
“Yeah,” she said. “I trust you.”

“I wish I trusted me,” Buffy murmured, almost to herself. 

Dawn’s eyes narrowed again, and she straightened her shoulders, an unconscious physical symbol of the burden she had decided to take on. She wasn’t a little kid anymore. She was fourteen, and she wasn’t going to be shoved to the sidelines. She’d do what she could to help her sister and Spike get through this. It was time to grow up and show she could be more than just the Slayer’s immature kid sister.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue and scenes from the episode “Family”.

Buffy glanced at the woman at her side, feeling kind of awkward as they walked towards the Magic Box. Tara glanced back at her, then away, looking as uncomfortable as Buffy felt. Tara was nice, but beyond that, she didn’t really know a lot about the quiet woman. Well, that and that, despite being shy and nervous, she had a lot of courage. She’d gone against her girlfriend to put a sleep spell on a crazy slayer just because it was the right thing to do. That took guts.

 _And I need to thank her for that,_ Buffy thought. How was she supposed to do that? _Oh, hey, person I haven’t interacted with much, thanks for spelling me unconscious and setting free the vampire I’d been keeping chained in my room. Also, I need help getting my boobies to make milk. Oh, and what do you want for your birthday tomorrow? ‘Cause I have no freakin’ clue what to get for you._

She sighed and looked at Tara again. “Hey, um… thanks for walking with me to the Magic Box. I know you’d probably rather be hanging out with Willow.”

“I-it’s no trouble.” The smile the witch shot her way was a little sad and wavery. “W-what did you want to, to talk about?”

“Um, well.” Buffy took a deep breath and just blurted it out. “I wanted to thank you. For what you did. With the sleep spell. I wasn’t exactly happy about it when I woke up, but you… um… you did the right thing.”

Tara’s smile became a bit stronger before fading away. “I-I’m glad I was able to help.” She was quiet for a moment, then added, “If… if there’s anything you need…. My mom was a midwife, so I-I know some stuff.”

“Actually, there is something,” Buffy said, thankful for the perfect lead in for what was going to be a really awkward question. “I kind of want… you know… a way to bond with the baby. After it’s born. Is there some kind of, of spell to make me able to...?” She trailed off and gestured towards her own chest.

Tara’s face brightened, transforming her from mousy to kind of pretty. Buffy didn’t have any interest in women, but she had to admit she could see why Willow liked Tara so much. She was sweet and when she was happy, she sort of glowed.

“Oh, you, you don’t need a spell for that. Just, just some herbs and a breast pump… or, or even just your hand instead of a pump. I can g-get you the herbs. And… if you want, I c-could strengthen them,” she offered shyly. “So it’ll take less time.”

A breast pump or her hand…. She couldn’t help thinking that someone actually sucking on her breasts would do a good job, too. With that thought came the mental image of Spike’s mouth on one of her breasts, his tongue curling around her nipple. It left her feeling both aroused and sickened. Why would she think of that? Spike was the one in love with _her_ not the other way around. And after what she’d done to him….

The queasiness increased, combining unpleasantly with the squirmy, weird feeling in her gut at the thought of another vampire being in love with her. Except… Spike wasn’t _just_ another vampire. He and Angel weren’t interchangeable Ken dolls to her Slayer Action Barbie. Despite knowing that, there was a part of her that wanted desperately to find another place for him to stay so she could disinvite him from her home. He _wasn’t_ Angelus. He wasn’t inclined to do the things Angelus would - he was more straightforward than that. Also, the chip - but the irrational fear was still there.

“Buffy?” Tara’s hesitant voice pulled her from her thoughts. “I…. There’s something I need to ask you, too.” She swallowed and looked down at her feet. “Are, are th-there good demons? De-demons who, who don’t h-hurt anyone?”

Buffy slowed her walk and frowned as she thought. “I don’t know…. I mean, I guess so. Maybe? There was this one guy that Giles was friends with who pretended to take out Ang-” She soo did _not_ want to think about Angel anymore. She thought of some of the demons she’d seen just hanging out at Willy’s and minding their own business. “Yeah, there are. I just don’t deal with them a lot. I see a demon hurting someone, and I make with the fighty and the killy. Otherwise….” She trailed off and shrugged.

“So… if, if there was a demon…. And th-they _wanted_ to be good, w-would you… he-help them?” Tara asked, her voice even quieter than normal and a little fearful.

They were just a few steps away from the Magic Box by this point, and Buffy stopped walking. Something was really bothering the other woman, and it seemed like it should be kept as private as possible.

“Do you know someone who’s a demon?” she asked, trying to be as gentle with the question as she could. “Someone who wants to be good?”

Tara opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again. “I… I…. M-my….” It sounded almost like the words were choking her, like they were too big to come out. “Th-the women –”

“Hey, guys!” Willow called out suddenly, trotting up to them. “Ready to do some research?” The redhead was practically vibrating with the thought as she reached them and wrapped her arm around Tara. Her eyes filled with tenderness as she looked at her girlfriend. “Hi, baby. You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Tara answered with a wobbly little smile. Buffy was pretty sure she _wasn’t_ fine, but she didn’t seem to want to talk about her demon friend in front of Willow. “H-how about you?”

“Always fine when I’m with you.”

The three of them walked into the shop only for Tara to stop dead in her tracks, her face going pale at the sight of a bearded young man. Buffy instantly shifted her stance. Not quite ready to fight, not really threatening, but she was ready to defend Tara from the jerk if it was needed.

“What’s the matter?” the man said, moving towards them. “You don’t have a hug for your big brother?”

Buffy glanced at Willow and Tara. The former looked as surprised as Buffy felt while the latter looked she might faint or throw up. Maybe both. The slayer’s eyes narrowed as she looked back at Tara’s brother. He may have been her relative, but Buffy had the feeling the man wasn’t really part of Tara’s family.

 

**…**

 

Spike tossed and turned for a few more minutes before deciding that getting just a little more sleep wasn’t in the cards. He was back in the Slayer’s room, but that wasn’t the problem. Joyce had made sure it was sprayed with some kind of deodorizer and had sprinkled baking soda and baby powder into the carpet. Buffy’s scent was muted enough that it didn’t bother him much, even though she had moved back into the room as well. No, the problem was that his usual sleeping position – sprawled facedown – had started feeling a bit odd lately.

He flipped onto his back and ran his hand down his abdomen until he felt… _something_. A small spot right above his pelvis that felt different, as if something was just barely pushing against it from the other side, making the area a little firmer. Not that he was exactly all soft and squidgy in the middle, mind, but there was a difference in the quality of it.

 _Well, hello there, Thursday_ , he thought. He hadn’t been in any kind of denial about what was going on, but he’d always been fairly tactile. Actually being able to _feel_ something made it all that much more real to him. It was a little bit unnerving and kind of… _neat_. He wouldn’t be telling Buffy about this particular development. She got her trance thing. This was _his_ and he bloody well wasn’t sharing it with her.

Besides, if he told her, the grabby little bint would probably want to touch him. He didn’t want her hands all over him at all, much less that close to certain bits. He may have realized he had loved her, but that didn’t change what she’d done under the influence of the ritual or the way it had made him feel. It didn’t make how he currently felt any clearer.

 _Gonna be awkward once the sprog’s big enough to show,_ he realized, wondering how he was going to get the Slayer to keep her hands to herself. _Maybe add a new rule? She’s only allowed to touch if she asks first, and if I have hold of her hand to control it? Huh, wouldn’t be a bad idea in general, that. If she only ever touches me with my permission, then that puts me in control, don’t it?_

He sat up and gingerly rested his feet on the floor. The skin was back, but it was still new and tended to split if he wasn’t careful. He put on the blue, fuzzy aloe socks – because the silly looking things were bloody comfortable and not because the Slayer wanted him to – before getting up and heading out of the room. He slowly padded down the stairs, called out a greeting to the two Summers ladies on the couch, and went into the kitchen.

Joyce and Dawn were on him before he even got the refrigerator open, like a pair of lionesses on the hunt. Joyce pushed him towards a seat at the kitchen island while Dawn got out some blood and started heating it up.

“Hey, now,” he protested as he sat down. “I’m not a sodding toddler. Can take care myself, can’t I?” He played at being irritated and growly, but he had to admit – to himself at least – that being fussed over by the two of them was a bit of alright.

Joyce gave him that _look_ that clearly said, _I am a mother, and you_ will _obey me_. “You’re still healing.” Her lips compressed and her eyes narrowed as she set four pills in front of him along with a glass of milk. Pre-natal vitamins and extra vitamin D, all taken with whole milk with even more vitamin D in it. “I’m not exactly happy about Buffy’s plan to swing by after the sun goes down to take you to the Magic Box.”

Spike was just as annoyed with _that_ particular plan as Joyce was, though for different reasons. While he agreed he wasn’t in quite good enough condition yet to be playing tag with Mr. Sunshine, he didn’t need a bloody _escort_ to go somewhere at night.

He muttered a thanks as the Nibblet put a warmed mug of blood in front of him, then cocked his head and studied her. How best to send her off for a mo so he could have a private chat with her mum? Well, he always had been one for the direct approach when possible.

“Could you scarper on upstairs for a spell? Need to talk to your mum for a bit.” Her eyes narrowed, wondering what he was trying to keep from her, and her jaw set stubbornly.

“I can –”

“You can sod off, already, is what you can do!” Spike snapped. He liked the girl – all full of spice and vinegar she was – but sometimes he really just wanted to eat her. Well, actually, he _always_ wanted to eat her – and Joyce for that matter – but he tended not to eat people he liked. He made exceptions, sometimes. Willow would have been a tasty little snack and a damn cute vampire if she’d wanted turned. “Not everything’s about you.”

She turned and flounced away, muttering under her breath about not being able to be all mature if no one let her stick around to actually _be_ mature.

“What do you need to talk about?” Joyce asked, her voice carefully neutral as she put two bowls of reheated stew on the island and sat across from him.

“You’ve had a couple sprogs, so you know about this whole thing, yeah?” Dumb question, really, but it was the best lead in he could think of.

“Yes. I do happen to know a few things about the process,” she said dryly.

“Is it… uh….” He hesitated. What if the answer to his question was no? What were they going to do about it? “Is there supposed to be a time when it feels a bit off to sleep on your stomach?”

“Hmm. You mean kind of like you’re lying on an apple or something?”

He blinked and thought about that description. Not really how he would have worded it, but… “Yeah. Kind of like that. So, that’s normal then, is it?”

“Absolutely.” She smiled reassuringly. “Though you’re a little early for that. Of course, we have no idea exactly how long this is going to last for you.” She tapped her spoon against her bottom lip, lost in thought. “Let’s see…. You’re a bit thin, so that’s going to factor into it….” She put her spoon back into her bowl and looked at him. “Considering the stage you’re at now, you’ll probably only be pregnant for five or six months.”

“’Only’ five or six months for something that shouldn’t even be happening at all,” he muttered.

He wanted Thursday – it was really his only chance for a kid ever – but the method left something to be desired. Even if he _hadn’t_ been a vampire, his body wasn’t designed for this sort of thing. What was the ritual _doing_ to him to make it all work? He’d always been a tad mercurial in his moods, but he was pretty sure it had gotten worse lately. There were times when he didn’t even feel like himself. And while the sprog might just be a little “apple” for now, eventually he was going to look – and probably feel – like he’d swallowed an entire whale.

He might as well just sit around on his arse all night, watching the telly and stuffing himself with Twinkies and Doritos while drinking those cherry cokes the boy was always bringing by. He’d end up looking like he had anyway and… _Oh god, that sounds bloody fantastic,_ he thought in dismay, practically drooling over the imagined junk food.

“Spike?” He blinked and focused on Joyce at the sound of his name. “I can’t tell you anything about the ritual, but if there’s anything you need to know about pregnancy itself, you’re always welcome to ask me.” She smiled and patted his hand. “Now, finish up your blood and stew, and I’ll make us some cocoa with little marshmallows.”

He raised a brow at that, going from mopey to amused in the blink of an eye. “You _do_ know I’m actually older than you, right?”

“I know.” She smiled again. “But everyone needs a little mothering at times.”

He drained the mug – a jittery, skittery feeling flashing through him as the human blood hit his system – and started in on the stew while Joyce got things ready for cocoa. For most of his existence, he’d been the one taking care of someone else. It felt nice to be on the receiving end. His hand drifted down and lightly rested on the barely there lump of sprog. _Take care of you, too, Thursday,_ he silently vowed. Thursday was _his_. He always had looked after what was his.

 

**…**

 

Tara stared at the door to Buffy’s house, not sure if she should be there. She choked back fresh tears as she remembered her father leaving her dorm room, disgusted with her magic use and insisting she come home. _I don’t_ feel _evil,_ she thought miserably. She could be good. She _knew_ she could be good.

She’d been studying and practicing more than ever lately so she could be useful. That _was_ why she’d been even more into the magic. To help. It wasn’t because she was turning twenty and the evil was growing inside of her. It couldn’t be.

Just standing there thinking about things wasn’t going to do any good. She took a deep breath and knocked on the door, wincing at how tiny and hesitant it was. Before she could try a stronger knock, the door opened and Dawn looked out at her.

“Huh,” the girl said before glancing back over her shoulder. “You were right, there _is_ someone here.” She turned back to Tara and smiled. “Hi.”

“H-hi,” Tara stammered, her own return smile weak and barely there. “I-is B-Buffy home?”    

“Not yet, but she should be here soon to get Spike. You can wait, if you want,” Dawn said, moving out of the doorway.

Tara walked in and looked around, noticing Spike sitting on the couch in the living room and flipping through channels. There was no sign of Joyce, though her car was in the driveway. Maybe she was upstairs, resting? It felt like it would be prying into their business to ask, but rude not to, leaving Tara feeling even more awkward than she usually did.

It was nice to see that Spike had free rein of the house without Buffy there. It meant she really had done some good. She remembered suddenly that Spike had said he’d do her a favor in return, if he felt like it. Maybe he’d feel like talking to her about demons? He was one, after all, and had probably met a lot of others in his time. He should know more about them than Buffy, who only really interacted with the ones who were demonstratively evil.

“Dawn, could, could I have a f-few minutes a-alone with Spike?” she asked apologetically. She felt awful about essentially sending someone away from part of their own home, but she really didn’t feel comfortable talking about this in front of anyone else.

“This maturity stuff is soo not what it’s cracked up to be,” she replied with an eye roll and dramatic sigh. “I guess I’ll go upstairs, then, so there’s no need to tell me the polite, Tara-y version of ‘sod off’.”

Dawn shot a glare at Spike who just smirked and mockingly blew her a kiss. The fourteen-year-old responded by holding up two fingers with the back of her hand facing him. Tara wasn’t sure what that was all about, but it made Spike laugh. Dawn grinned, then headed for the stairs. Tara watched her go up, feeling wistful. She seemed to have developed a nice, sort of sibling-like relationship with the vampire. Tara wished she’d had something like that with her own brother while growing up.

“What’d you need, then, pet?” Spike asked.

Tara turned towards him and took a hesitant step closer. She could do this. She just had to say the words. She took a deep breath and blurted out, “I’m a demon,” just as the front door opened. She whirled around to face a stunned looking Buffy.

“You’re the demon?” the Slayer asked, sounding wary, but not overtly hostile. “The one who wants to be good?”

“I kn-kn-know I-I can be g-good,” Tara stuttered, the tears starting to break through. “I _w-want_ to be good…. Th-the women in, in my family. We, we have demon in us. It, it takes over w-when we….” She paused, swallowing to ease her dry throat. “When we turn twenty.”

“What kind of demon?” Buffy asked. She still didn’t sound hostile, but there was a distance in her voice, almost like she was mentally drawing away from her. “What do you turn into?” She frowned suddenly. “And how does that even work? The chewy demon center is just sort of dormant until you turn twenty?”

“I-I d-don’t know,” Tara forced out. She could feel the beginnings of a panic attack starting to overwhelm her. She took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself. “Th-they nev-never said. M-my mother, sh-she became a de-demon at tw-twenty. Th-they had to keep her in line.”

“They who? How did they keep her in line?” Buffy asked, sounding confused now. “What kind of things would she have done if they hadn’t contained her?”

“I, I don’t know. Th-they never….” That was kind of strange, wasn’t it? All the stories passed down, but none had never said what evil things had been done. “I, I don’t know what I c-could do, but, but I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“You won’t,” Buffy promised, an oddly gentle grimness to her voice. “I won’t let you.”

“H-how would you-”

“If there’s no other way…” Buffy sighed, sad and tired. “I’ll kill you if I have to. If there’s no other way. I don’t want to have to, but I promise you, I won’t let you hurt anyone. Okay? Now, you need to talk to me. Tell me what you know so we can figure out what you are.”

Tara paled, feeling sick and scared. Kill her? Buffy would kill her? But she wanted to be _good_. She could be good. Her mother…. “Th-they kept…. I… she ….” She stopped, forcing herself to slow down and breathe before she hyperventilated. Oh god, oh god, oh god. She could die tonight. Or be forced back with her family. _I’d prefer death,_ she thought bleakly.

“Th-the men k-kept her in line. Th-they made her obey. Sh-she did chores and wh-whatever th-they told her to. I-if she d-didn’t do what she w-was supposed to, they knew it was the demon getting out of control. Th-they’d lock her up un-until she behaved. A-and, sh-she c-couldn’t see us kids i-if she wasn’t good. The, the demon m-might have hurt us.”

There was a low growl from the couch at that, but Tara was only vaguely aware of it. She felt like a hornets’ nest had been bashed around inside of her.

“They kept her away from her _kids_?” Buffy sounded shocked and appalled at that. Then she suddenly looked guilty. She continued on in a rush. “And all, all of that kept the demon in check?” She sounded dubious. “The big strong menfolk made her do chores, and _that_ kept her from… doing what, exactly?”

“I, I don’t know. Th-they never said. J-just that the, the magic….” She paused, trying to think. It had all made sense growing up. She hadn’t liked it, but it had made sense. But the magic never had felt evil. “I-it’s a sign of the evil. She, she never did anything bad. The-they kept her under control.”

“ _How_?” Buffy asked, getting frustrated. “How did all of that keep a _demon_ under control?”

“I-I don’t know! It just d-did!”

Spike laughed suddenly. “Oh, I know this tune. Tell a girl she’s evil, and that she has to do as you say. Angelus pulled _that_ one all the sodding time. Dozens of innocent young girls told they were evil. Told ‘em he was their _salvation_.” His voice dripped with contempt. “Said he could pull the sin right out of them. S’pose he did at that. Strung ‘em along and sucked ‘em dry. Left nothing but pretty little corpses, empty of blood, life, and sin.”

He paused, his voice sounding thoughtful as he went on. “Did it to Dru, even, though he went a bit different with her. Wanted her to give in to the evil. Go insane and become his little puppet.”He shook his head in disgust and stood up. “Lovely bunch, your family. Should have ‘em over for tea, swap stories on bein’ evil…. Still and all, this has gone all bad soap opera, so….” He trailed off and smacked Tara upside the head hard enough to hurt.

“ _Ow!_ ” she yelped in pain, rubbing her head. She looked at Spike – feeling confused and a little betrayed – only to realize he’d cried out too and was also rubbing his head. The chip. The chip had fired when he hit her. That meant….

“Damn it, Spike!” Buffy snapped, cutting into Tara’s thoughts. “You’re _supposed_ to be taking it easy. Stress isn’t good for you or the baby! Don’t make me break out the bubble wrap! And even without the whole pain and stress thing, you shouldn’t be hitting humans in the firs-” Her eyes widened as she looked back at Tara. “Hey, that only works on humans. You’re human, Tara!”

“You’re welcome,” Spike muttered, flopping back on the couch and carefully pulling his boots on.

“Th-thank you,” Tara whispered, completely stunned. She wasn’t a demon. She wasn’t evil. Her _magic_ wasn’t evil. She smiled at Buffy. “I, I’m not a demon?”

The Slayer smiled back. “Nope. You’re not a demon.” She frowned. “What the hell is _wrong_ with your family? Why would they tell you that you’re a demon?”

There was a moment of awkward silence as Tara tried to come up with an answer. Her mother and father had been second cousins, the tale coming down from both sides of the family. The women were evil demons and had to be kept in line. They had to be controlled and taught their place.

“Obvious, innit?” Spike said into the silence. “Little family legend to keep the womenfolk firmly under male thumbs. Keeps them in line and too scared to kick up a fuss. If they can’t keep their place, punish ‘em and use them as an example for the younger lot.”  
Could that be true? Had her family done all that, just for control? There were no demons? No evil? She was human. Buffy had said she was human, so she had to be. Tara suddenly felt different. She was still herself. Still the shy mousy little thing she’d always been, but it was like a huge burden had been lifted from her shoulders. She’d lived under that weight for so long, and now she was finally free. She felt almost bubbly. Like she could float away at any moment.

“Can I come down now?” Dawn called from upstairs.

“You….” Tara stopped and cleared her throat before continuing on in a stronger voice. “You can come down.”

The girl thundered down the steps, looking excited. “Research party, right? You said I could help with the research.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Buffy said with an eye roll that perfectly matched Dawn’s from earlier. “Research party.” She glanced at Tara. “You can come, too, if you want. It’s a whole group thing, and you’re part of the group.”

“I… really?” She’d never truly been part of a group before. There had been the Wicca thing where she’d met Willow, but even there she’d been on the fringes, not really belonging.

“’Course you are,” Spike said, moving past her to grab his coat from the railing and put it on. “Competent, friendly little witch? Fit right in with the Slayer and her goody-goody lot.”

He swept out the door, followed by Buffy and Dawn. Tara paused for a moment to take it all in before heading out after them. It felt good to belong.

 

**…**

 

Dawn kept glancing over her shoulder as they walked to the Magic Box. Tara was beside her, but Buffy and Spike had fallen back and were talking quietly enough that she was only able to hear snatches of conversation.

“… think that will work?” Buffy asked. Dawn caught the dubious expression on her face before she looked forward again.

“I… frustrated by this than…”

Dawn sighed and stopped trying to eavesdrop. It wasn’t a very mature thing to do. Besides, she couldn’t make out enough of what they were saying to make any sense of it. Maybe Spike was trying to convince Buffy to give him some more of her blood? It seemed to help him heal faster, and he’d started limping slightly a few minutes ago. This was the first time since the torture that he’d worn shoes or walked farther than the distance from Buffy’s room to the kitchen.

Stupid crazy woman. Stupid key. Buffy and Spike seemed to know what it was. They should just smash it or something. For some reason, though, they seemed focused on protecting it. Protecting…. _Oh, jeeze,_ Dawn thought, glancing back over her shoulder at Spike. What if the key was the baby? That would explain why Spike had let himself get tortured instead of spilling the beans, and why Buffy seemed protective of the key, too.

Was that what Buffy was keeping from her? The baby was the key, but she wasn’t ready to tell anyone yet? Dawn could understand that. What if the others all liked the key smashing idea? Willow could hold Buffy down with magic while the others took care of things. They wouldn’t even have to kill Spike, just shish kebob him, or make him drink some poison or something. The Scoobies could do anything they wanted to the vampire, and there wasn’t really a thing he could do to stop them.

That had to be scary, but Spike had still insisted on coming to help with the research, even though he was still healing. Man, he was _so_ cool. The whole thing with the ritual sucked majorly, but Dawn was guiltily glad it had happened. It meant she was going to be an aunt – something she’d figured was never gonna happen – and she got to hang out with a badass vampire with a cool coat who she could coax into telling gruesome stories when no one else was around.

They got to the shop, and Dawn and Tara went inside together, the latter immediately going over to sit with Willow. Dawn lingered by the door, waiting for Spike and her sister. They came in not long after, still talking. That was a good thing, wasn’t it? That they were talking?

“So you’ll talk to Ben?” Buffy asked.

Spike sighed in annoyance. “Fine, yeah, I’ll talk to the doc if it’ll get you to stop nattering on about it.” He paused and narrowed his eyes at her. “But _you_ have to talk to him, too. You’re a right mess, you are.”

“I am _not_ a mess,” Buffy protested. Dawn snorted at that, and Buffy glared at her. Tossing her in the looney bin had been a bad idea, but her sister had totally needed therapy since becoming the Slayer. “I’m not…. But, yeah, I’ll talk to Ben. I have to set a good example.”

Spike just shook his head and limped over to the book laden table where everyone else was sitting. Buffy tried to sit next to him, but Dawn plopped into the seat before she could. That way, if anything weird happened with the ritual ookiness, Buffy would have to go through her to do anything to Spike.

“Our research efforts have been split between the ritual and this key,” Giles said, looking at Spike, “but we did discover a few things. As Anya indicated, when the, uh, carrying parent lacks the necessary… equipment for carrying a child, it is formed within a sort of pocket dimension that is fully in phase with our own.”

“And that means what exactly?” Spike asked.

Dawn was glad he’d been the one to ask. If the one-hundred-plus-year-old vampire didn’t know something, then she didn’t feel as stupid for not knowing it either. If it had been Buffy.... Well, Buffy wasn’t exactly a drooling idiot, but she wasn’t exactly all knowledge girl, either.

“Ah, well, as near as I can tell, that means the pocket dimension is essentially an artificial womb and reacts with our reality in the same way a natural one would. Our world has an impact on it, and it has an impact on ours. Once the child has, uh, gestated long enough, the pocket dimension will go out of phase and exit the parent’s body. It will then dissolve, leaving the child behind.”

“Huh. Well, that sounds doable.”

Spike seemed pretty nonchalant about it, but Dawn was sure he was relieved. She knew she’d been wondering what was going to happen, and her thoughts had been along the lines of the chest burster from _Alien._ Spike could have survived that, but it would have been really painful and awful.

It was good that they knew all of that, but there was still more to learn. Dawn picked up a book and got to researching.

 

**…**

 

The battle was short but intense. One demon had come in through the front, followed shortly by two bursting in through the training room. Tara had joined her magic with Willow’s to help Giles and Xander take out of one of the things while Spike and Buffy each killed one on their own.

“Wh-what were those things?” Tara asked, feeling a little high from the rush of fear and adrenaline. There was also the euphoria of being able to actually help. She’d never really been involved in the fighting part of it all. She kind of liked it.

“Lei-ach demons,” Spike answered cheerfully. He seemed to be having trouble walking – limping heavily as he made his way back to the research table – but his aura…. Tara blushed and looked away. It wasn’t quite the same, but it reminded her a lot of Willow’s right after making love. “Fun little buggers. Big with the marrow-sucking.”

“Damn it, Spike,” Buffy huffed, “you’re not supposed to be fighting things yet.”

“Tell that to them, then, yeah?” he said with an eye roll as he dropped heavily into one of the chairs. “One of ‘em was about to bash your head in. Next time, just let it happen, shall I?”

Buffy sighed and walked over to him, dragging another chair close for him to prop his feet up on. She looked like she was about to take his boots off for him, but stopped and looked him in the eyes instead.

“Can… can I…?” she asked, sounding self-conscious and uncertain.

Spike tilted his head slightly and studied the Slayer through narrowed eyes. Tara wasn’t sure what, but something seemed to pass between them. Some kind of easing of the tension. He slowly nodded, and Buffy immediately went down to her knees and started taking his boots off. The bottoms of the fuzzy blue socks were soaked with blood. Buffy winced, then noticeably bit back a gasp as she removed the socks. The skin on the bottoms of his feet looked like it had been rubbed off.

Tara was distracted from the sickening sight by the front door of the shop opening. She turned to face it, her heart thumping with fear and excitement at the thought of more demons. What she saw was even worse. Her father came in, Donny and cousin Beth right behind. _You’re not a demon,_ she reminded herself. _You’re not a demon, and they can’t make you go back._

“What is all this?” her father demanded, gesturing towards the dead demons. “What’s going on here? Did you call in some friends of yours to attack these people, Tara?”

“N-no, sir,” she whispered, hating herself for her stutter and timidity. She should stand up tall and tell him to go to hell, but she just… couldn’t. He was her father. That was supposed to mean something, wasn’t it?

He just looked at her in disgust and shook his head. “The camper’s outside. We’ll stop by your room to get your clothes and things. None of that magic stuff. That part of your life is _over_ now, young lady.”

“What? Tara? You’re, you’re leaving?” Willow asked in distress, squeezing her hand tightly. “What’s going on?”

“I-I’m n-not,” Tara insisted, tearing her gaze away from her father and focusing on her lover. Things had been a little strained between them lately, but she knew Willow was a good person. She just got confused sometimes about right and wrong. Tara got confused sometimes too. “I’m not g-going anywhere.”

“Come on, now, Tara. We know what’s best for you,” her father insisted. “We’re your family, and we know how to control your little… problem.”

“Problem? What problem?” Willow looked so bewildered. “What’s going on, baby?”

“The only ‘problem’ Tara has is a crappy bunch of relatives who managed to convince her she was a demon,” Buffy said, coming to stand between Tara and her family. “She’s human – we _won’t_ be repeating the test for that.” She glared over her shoulder at Spike “– and she’s not going anywhere if she doesn’t want to. You can try to force her, but you’ll have to go through me to do it.”

“And me,” Dawn declared, planting herself defiantly next to her sister.

Tara felt tears welling up behind her eyes as she smiled. They were standing up for her. She couldn’t believe they were standing up for her. Willow’s arm wrapped around her and pulled her close.

“They made you think you were a demon?” the beautiful redhead whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You, you didn’t think demons mattered,” she whispered back. “Th-that what Buffy was, was doing was okay, because S-Spike was just, just a demon.”

Willow’s eyes widened in distressed understanding. “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry. I didn’t…. I’m so sorry. Forgive me?”

Tara nodded and wiped at her eyes. There needed to be more said between them, but now wasn’t the time. She was vaguely aware of Buffy still arguing with her father. Giles, Xander, and Anya had gathered together in front of her father, showing a united front against him.

“You’re dealing with all of us,” Xander said.

“’Cept for me,” Spike called out. “Bird did me a good turn, but I’m on break.”

“’Cept for Spike,” Xander added unnecessarily. “He’s on break.”

“This is insane,” Tara’s father spat in disgust. “You people have no right to interfere. We’re her blood kin. Who the hell are you?”

“ _We_ are her family,” Buffy said with a quiet certainty that made Tara’s heart ache with joy and acceptance.

“I believe you are done here, now, Mr. Maclay,” Giles said with icy civility. “If you do not remove yourself from the premises, I shall have to call the police.”

“Could just kill ‘em,” Spike offered. “They won’t be a bother to her then. Pretty sure I can eat people if they’re already dead, and I’m a bit peckish at the mo’.”

“Shut up, Spike!” Buffy said with a glare. “You aren’t helping.”

Calling the police seemed like a bad idea with the dead demons in the shop, but Tara appreciated the sentiment. Spike’s offer to eat them was oddly sweet – in a horrifying, evil kind of way – but that was even more of a bad idea. She stepped forward, head held high as she confronted her father. “Dad, just go.”

He scowled and turned to leave, Donny following along. Beth lingered for a moment, shooting her a look of disgust and anger.

“Are you happy now?” her cousin asked bitterly.

Was she happy? She smiled. Yes, she was. “You, you’re not a demon either, Beth.”

“What are you talking about?” Beth seemed uneasy. Tara could understand that.

“It-it’s a lie…. It’s all, all been lies. I just, just thought you needed t-to know.”

Beth stared at her for a silent moment, looking like her world had been tilted on its axis. Then she shook her head and ran off after the others. Tara sighed sadly and went back to the research table. She’d done all she really could. Beth would have to make her own path.

“Giles, Xander,” Buffy said, “help me with the bodies. Do the rest of you think you can keep researching?”

After a chorus of affirmatives, everyone settled into their assigned tasks.

“I could really use a fag right about now,” Spike muttered with a sigh as he grabbed a book from the table.

Tara bit her tongue to keep from saying what popped into her head, then glanced out of the corner of her eye at the vampire. They were all family, right? Family – true family – teased one another.

“S-sorry,” she said blandly, “but me and Willow are both t-taken.”

That startled a laugh out of him, and he grinned at her. “You’re a bit of alright, aren’t you?”

Tara smiled back and picked up her own book. It really did feel good to belong.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some scenes and dialogue from the Episode “Fool For Love”

Buffy and Dawn were both at their respective schools, and Joyce was at the gallery, but Spike wasn’t alone in the Summers house. He’d managed to put it off for about a week, but now Ben was sitting quietly in the living room with him, waiting for him to talk. Spike didn’t particularly _want_ to talk to the man – he could bloody well get himself sorted on his own if the sodding Hellmouth would give him two sodding minutes to catch his metaphorical breath – but he’d agreed to it to get the Slayer to stop going on at him.

He wasn’t above weaseling his way out of something if he’d a mind to, but doing what he said was sort of a matter of pride, wasn’t it? Besides, weaseling was the type of thing Angelus would have done, and he’d long since outgrown his Angelus wannabe phase.

“So,” Spike finally said into the silence, “what-all did the Slayer tell you about things?”

“She told me some stuff about the ritual, but I’d like to hear what you have to say about it,” Ben answered in a nicely non-answering way. Lovely. On with the bloody head shrinker psycho-babble already, were they?

Spike shrugged. “Not much to say. Slayer and I were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Slayer went all wonky, apparently because I’m even more of a masochist than I thought, and I was supposedly in love with her. Now we’ve a sprog on the way.”

“Was?” Ben repeated. “You don’t love her anymore?”

Spike looked away uncomfortably. That was something he’d been trying to suss out. Falling out of love with someone because of something they’d done against their will didn’t really feel right. It didn’t feel like _him_ – he’d instantly forgiven Dru for a lot worse on a regular basis – but how could he love her if he didn’t want to touch her?

He’d always been touching Dru, constantly nuzzling and hugging her. Cuddling her close to breathe in her intoxicating scent. When he’d finally gotten her away from Angelus during the business with Acathla, he’d pulled her unconscious body against his as he drove, desperately needing the contact he’d been mostly denied since his grandsire’s unwelcome return.

Hell, he’d even snuggled and snogged the Slayer all the bloody time during Willow’s spell. Now, though? Now it was all a confusing mess. He touched what he cared about. It all circled back to that. How could he love someone and _not_ want to touch them?

“Okay, let’s try a different question. What about Buffy made you fall in love – sorry, ‘supposedly’ fall in love – with her in the first place?”

Spike glanced back at the human. “Who says it’s about her? Maybe I’m just a contrary wanker with a taste for perversion?” He snorted and shook his head in disgust. “Don’t get much more perverse than a vampire in love with the bloody slayer. It’s just…. It’s _wrong_ on so many levels.”

“Yeah, that tells me why you don’t _want_ to be in love with her, but not really why you are,” Ben pointed out. He waited a beat before correcting himself. “Were.”

Spike didn’t answer right away. Instead, he stared at the man’s throat, and the pulse point that insisted on teasing him with the pumping blood. He preferred young women – usually around the age Buffy was now, when they were technically adults but so full of untapped potential and the heady contrast between girl and woman – but food was food.

He stood up abruptly and went into the kitchen, grabbing a two-liter soda bottle full of blood from the refrigerator. He didn’t even bother to heat it, just drinking it down straight from the container. Even cold, it was so much better than pig.

It actually made the desire to kill the doc worse, the taste of human on his tongue igniting the urge towards mindless mayhem, but without hunger pushing it along, he was able to clamp down on it more easily. He thought wistfully of the time when he wouldn’t even have bothered. Now, though… well, he’d just end up clutching his head in agony, wouldn’t he?

He returned to the living room and sat back on the couch. “Right then, what were we on about?” he asked. He knew full well what they’d been talking about, but he needed a minute to settle after the blood rush.

“Buffy, and why you fell in love with her,” Ben answered. His pulse rate was up a bit, but other than that, he didn’t seem affected by a vampire guzzling two liters of blood after eyeing his neck.

“Right. Yeah, um....” Spike huffed out a breath and ran his hand through his hair. “Been trying to suss that out myself, honestly. She’s an annoying little chit and a right bitch most times, but…”

She was full of fire and life, the Slayer was. Most vampires never even met a single slayer, but Spike had actively sought them out. Only a couple had actually been worth his time, the majority of them nothing but good little Council automatons of death. Not Buffy Summers. She danced. She _lived_.

Or at least she had before the Lord General of the Wanker Brigade has messed her all up. Was there anything Angelus touched that didn’t end up broken in one way or another? Even Darla, from what he’d heard, dusted by her own ungrateful spawn.

The poof had stuck just as much of a stake into Buffy’s heart as he had Darla’s. A metaphorical stake for a metaphorical heart, but those were the ones that hurt the worst. She’d tried to patch up the hole with wet cardboard, thinking she couldn’t be hurt by what couldn’t burn. That just left you with a soggy mess. You needed fire to cleanse wounds of the heart.

He almost felt sorry for Finn. To be right there, next to that fire, close enough to warm yourself. Only to be held back by a glass wall. Of course, the pillock had damaged her in his own way, hadn’t he? Trying to flop his soggy self over the top of the glass enclosure to smother her flame when it wouldn’t be what he wanted it to be.

“Spike?”

He focused on Ben again, his attention immediately starting to drift back to his thoughts. “Might as well scarper on back home. Don’t think I wanna talk anymore.”

He was only vaguely aware of the man getting up and leaving the house. He didn’t know if the talk had helped with his frustrating aversion to the Slayer. He didn’t know if anything ever would or what the future would bring. He did know one thing, though. He really wanted to see Buffy dance again.

 

**…**

 

Buffy walked alone through the cemetery, feeling grumpy and out of sorts. Spike had been all weird and kind of spacey when she’d gotten home from classes. She’d accidentally bumped into him, and he’d jumped like she’d tried to fondle him or something. Then he’d gone off on a nasty, curse-ridden tirade that she still wasn’t sure had been aimed at her or himself.

Then, when she’d asked him if he was ready to go on patrol with her, he’d yelled, “Sod off, bitch! I’m busy being a bloody whale.” She had no idea what _that_ was supposed to mean, but it apparently entailed watching TV with a small mountain of junk food. Stupid vampire and his moody… moods.

“I wanna be a whale,” she pouted. But no, _she_ was busy being “she who lurks alone in cemeteries.”

Her vampire tinglies went off just as she caught sight of an eighties rocker reject standing around near a fresh grave. Based on his outdated clothing, she took a guess that he was an older vampire waiting on a special friend he’d made for himself. She jumped towards him and pounded him to the ground, a putrid stench of concentrated grodiness wafting up.

“You know, it’s probably none of my business, but I just gotta ask,” he lunged, and she backhanded him, enjoying the fight and the banter and ignoring the part of her that missed having a partner by her side, “you smell this bad when you were alive?”

She kicked him into a headstone. “’Cause if it’s a post-mortem thing, then boy is my face red….” She didn’t think it was a vampire thing. Some of them could be much with the ubergross, but both Angel and Spike were clean and smelled nice.

“But just so you know,” she continued her one-sided conversation as she flipped him over grave marker and whipped out her stake. This vamp had been pretty quiet, other than some basic growlies. That was something she missed about fighting Spike. He’d at least kept things verbally interesting. “The fast-growing field of personal grooming has come a long way since you died.”

She somersaulted over the headstone, her stake raised and ready to strike, but Mr. McStenchy was ready for her. He grabbed her arm as she landed and spun her around to slam her against the marker, plunging her own stake towards her abdomen.

Time seemed to slow to a frozen crawl as she tried to stop forward momentum. She wasn’t strong enough. She was too weak. _No_! She was the _Vampire_ Slayer. Stupid rituals and primordial hos in red may have been able to kick her butt, but she wasn’t going down to something she was specifically designed to kill.

Using all of her strength, she stopped the stake before more than the very tip could sink into her flesh. She pushed it away and spun, jerking free and thrusting her weapon into the chest of the startled vampire.

_What the_ hell _just happened?_ she wondered, staring down at the pile of dust. She was in the best shape of her life, and she’d almost been taken out by a single vampire who couldn’t even figure out the basics of soap and water. She hadn’t been using her full strength. _Why_ hadn’t she been using her full strength?

_Riley,_ she thought, stunned by the realization. She’d been holding back in every aspect of her life, trying to please him by being the relatively normal girl he seemed to want. He’d been out of her life for over a week, and she was _still_ doing it.

The alarm on her new watch beeped, interrupting her thoughts. Damn it. She had to hurry or she’d be late to her first session with Ben. She left things to quietly percolate in the back of her mind and ran towards the Magic Box.

 

**…**

 

“Sorry about this,” Buffy said, trying to turn a grimace of pain into a smile for Ben as she patched herself up. Good thing she’d decided on her training room as the best place for this. It had a good stash of first aid supplies. Ben had offered to help, but she’d waved him off. She could handle this herself.

The wound wasn’t all that bad, but with all the blood she’d been donating lately, she really couldn’t afford to lose more. Well, she _could_ – she wasn’t about to keel over from blood loss from the four ounces she gave a day – but she wanted to keep as much of it available as she could.

Considering the really terrible luck Spike seemed to have had since… well, since the very first time he came to Sunnydale, honestly… it was a good idea to make sure there was enough Slayer yumminess to go around. She paused to really think about that for a moment. Considering they lived on a Hellmouth, the whole getting a guy pregnant thing honestly wasn’t all that strange. But the whole feeding a vampire a daily dose of her blood? That was freaky and weird on so many levels, and went against everything she’d ever been taught as a Slayer.

“What happened?” Ben asked, the question a welcome distraction from her thoughts.

“Vampire got me with my own stake.” This time there was no attempt at a smile to soften the grimace. She was furious with herself, but doing her best to keep from spilling it all over Ben. He was a nice guy, taking time out of his life to help her and Spike. “I can’t _believe_ I let that happen. All the extra effort and training, and I just...” She sighed and shook her head. “If I get started about that, there won’t be time for the stuff I’m supposed to be talking to you about.”

She _so_ did not want to talk about what she was supposed to be talking about. Confessing to Riley what she’d done – and the sick fact that she had enjoyed it –  had been a heat of the moment kind of thing. Deliberating opening up that can of worms and spilling it all over a virtual stranger? That was completely different. She wasn’t looking forward to it all.

With a slight shudder, she led the way to the two chairs Giles had moved into the room for her. Ben sat down in one, but Buffy just stared at the other before starting to pace. The motion tugged at the wound, but it was ignorable. The need to move wasn’t. If she just kept going, maybe none of it would catch up with her.

“Buffy, you’ve got a lot going on in your life right now.” She bit back a sarcastic comment – _No, really? You think? ‘Cause I was thinking of adding a few more things. Maybe an extra looming apocalypse or two to really liven things up_ – and just nodded her agreement with that little understatement. “It’s all knotted together. We don’t know yet which string being pulled is going to help it all unravel, so you go ahead and talk about whatever you want. I’m not going to judge you for anything. And even if I was, I’m just a guy you barely know.”

Buffy blew out a stream of air towards her hairline and reluctantly sat down. “Okay, so… there was this guy. He was the TA of one of my classes. There was some awkward flirting – at least I _think_ the stuff at the party about assigned chapters and cheese was supposed to be flirting – and a whole bunch of mixed signals and, and….” She trailed off. She didn’t know what she’d done wrong, but Ben had serious “someone cut the cheese” face. “What? What is it?”

“Sorry, just… the TA was hitting on you?” he said with a dubious frown. “That just seems kind of skeevy.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again with a frown of her own. Huh. She’d never really thought about that before. “I, I guess. I never really….” She shook her head. “Anyway, I thought he was this normal person, but he wasn’t. He had all this military training and some other stuff, though we didn’t know about the other stuff for a while. Long story short, we started dating.”

She let herself really think about her relationship with Riley. There had been all kinds of things going on around them. Dealing with the Initiative and Adam and that whole thing with Angel, but on the whole, her time with Riley had been… quiet and just sort of comfortable. For a while at least.

“He, um, he said he accepted all of me. The Slayer and the woman, but every time I did something all superhero-y, he would get… I could see this sort of pinching around his eyes. So, I… um, I started holding back, trying to be a normal girl for him.” She stood up and started to pace again.

“I let myself be weaker for him, but it wasn’t enough. And then… all this _stuff_ happened.” She made a wide, sweeping gesture. “And he had to have an operation, but he didn’t want it, because then he’d be normal. I’ve wanted so much to be a normal girl, and he acted like being a normal person was worse than death.”

She just didn’t _get_ that. Yeah, she’d been upset and freaked out when she’d lost her powers on her eighteenth birthday, but that hadn’t been becoming a normal girl. She’d still been the Slayer, just a powerless version. There had also been the whole poisoned and betrayed thing and having to fight off a psycho vampire who had kidnapped her mother to add to the extra super fun time stew.

“A normal girl.” Ben’s thoughtful voice broke into her thoughts. “You keep saying that. That you tried to be a normal _girl_.”

“Well, yeah, that’s because I _am_ a girl,” Buffy said defensively. Riley may have basically called her a man in chick’s clothing, but she hadn’t thought her gender was actually in question.

“Despite what some idiots seem to think, women are people,” Ben pointed out unnecessarily. She was well aware of that. “But you never said you wanted to be normal, or just a normal person. You want to be a normal _girl_.”

Buffy stopped pacing and looked down at her feet. “I.... I’m not like other girls. It’s not just the strength and the slaying and all that. There’s… there’s something....” _Wrong with me that drives men away,_ she thought, but didn’t say. “I _used_ to be good at being a girl. I was a cheerleader and, and kind of a nasty bitch, but very much a girl. But then I became the Slayer, and....” She trailed off, not sure how to word her point. She wasn’t even sure what her point was.

“Maybe instead of worrying about all of that, you should just… be Buffy?” Ben suggested quietly.

Just be Buffy. Like it was the easiest thing in the world. Be Buffy. She could do that. Couldn’t she?

“Just be Buffy,” she repeated. “And who is Buffy? Super strong hero girl with great fashion sense and the uncanny ability to emasculate men just by existing?”

She’d done it to Xander at least once by stopping Larry from bullying him. She sometimes wondered if that was the real reason Angel had left her. She hadn’t been the sweet, unchanging little girl he’d wanted her to be. Heck, the only guy in her life she was absolutely sure she hadn’t done anything like that to was, weirdly enough, Spike. Despite all of the neutered and impotence jokes, his current condition, and the fact that she was pretty sure he had stolen her eyeliner, Spike seemed to be pretty secure in his masculinity.

“If that’s who you feel you are, then yes,” Ben said, surprising her. She’d kind of expected him to tell her that _wasn’t_ who she was and to give a list of attributes he’d noticed, or something. “Don’t focus on who you think you _should_ be, just be what you think you are. If it’s not working for you, change up the formula until you feel right in your own skin.”

Comfortable in her own skin. When was the last time she felt that way? She couldn’t even remember.

“You’re Buffy Summers,” he continued. “Only you get to decide what that means. Experiment, find out who you are. It’s what college kids do. When you get home tonight, figure out what Buffy Summers wants to do with her night… and just _do_ it.”

She thought about that. She didn’t need to decide what she wanted to do with her entire life, just for the night. What did Buffy Summers want to do tonight? _I wanna be a whale._ God, that sounded wonderful. She could do some light patrolling on the way home, then see if Spike was in a good enough mood to share his snacks.

“Thanks, doc,” she said with a smile.

 

**…**

 

Buffy pulled a Dorito out of the bag Spike had grudgingly agreed to share with her as they watched… whatever the hell it was they were watching. It was some kind of badly dubbed kung fu movie, but beyond that, she had no clue. One of the guys executed a flashy spin-kick that took too long to actually be the least bit effective. It, of course, landed perfectly and took down an opponent who should have been able to dodge or block the blow easily.

“Oooh, pretty little kick, innit?” Spike said appreciatively before shoving half a Twinkie into his mouth all at once.

Buffy eyed him in disbelief. She could understand that comment coming from Xander, but Spike actually knew how to fight. How he could possibly think that had been any good?

“It’d be completely useless in a fight,” she pointed out.

“Oh, absolutely,” he agreed, waving that fact off. “But it’s nice to look at, and you’ve got to admire his form. Man’s not a fighter, he’s an actor. Bloody brilliant bit of body control, that.”

“Huh.” Buffy tilted her head, as if the actual change in how she was looking at the screen would change how she perceived what was happening on it.

“That guy right there though, he’s got real talent.” Spike pointed to one of the background fighters, a man whose moves were both useless _and_ ugly. “You see what he’s doing there? He _knows_ how to fight. You can see it how he moves. But he don’t want to show up the lead, so he’s mangling it on purpose. He’s doin’ it smart though.” He tapped the side of his head. “Keeping to the forms just enough that he doesn’t hurt himself.”

“Huh,” she said again. Now that Spike had pointed it out, she could see what he was talking about. He could be pretty observant when he wanted to be.

“Drunken Monkey comes on next. Much better movie.”

“Oooh, yeah, I love that movie!” Buffy said without taking her eyes off the screen. “It’s got – _hey!_ ”

She stared down at the thing that had hit her head. A wrapped Twinkie. “Jerk,” she muttered.

“Shrewish bitch.”

She picked up the Twinkie and unwrapped it. “Thanks.”

Spike just grunted in response and opened up the box of Ho-Hos, tossing a couple her way. “Just because I’m sharing doesn’t mean you’re getting your filthy mitts all over my cherry cokes,” he said, popping one open and taking a long drink.

“Yeah, well, I don’t want your stupid cherry cokes,” she huffed. “I like diet.”

“Yeah, because you really need to be dieting,” Spike said with an eye roll. He was starting to sound grumpy. Great, just when she’d actually… been having fun.

That realization hit her like a ton of bricks. She’d been having fun. With _Spike_. She eyed him. He was muttering about stupid girls who thought they needed to be sticks to be attractive and that chubby was nice too, damn it.

“Hey, Spike,” she said, cutting him off.

“What?” he growled.

“You remember how you said I owed you dinner and a movie?”

“Yeah, what about it?” He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at her. “Gonna try to weas-”

“Do you, um, do you want to do that tomorrow night?”

It was a bad idea. A really, _really_ bad idea, but she wanted some fun. She deserved some fun, right? She could ask her friends to all patrol together, give her a night off. It had been a while since she’d had one. And she really did need to get to know Spike better. She’d agreed to his rules, so that meant he was going to be part of her life for a while. They need to learn to get along. For the baby.

“Are you asking me out on a _date_?” Spike asked incredulously.

“Yeah, right, of course I am,” Buffy said, voice dripping sarcasm. “And since I’m apparently so manly, you can be my girlfriend.”

_Oh, great, nice job, Buffy. He was already grumpy, and now…_

Spike surprised her by shaking his head and laughing. “Works for me.” He smirked. “Those magazines of yours _did_ say I’d make a fantastic girlfriend.”

He’d read her magazines and done the quizzes? “Just how bored _were_ you?”

“You’ve no idea, Slayer, no idea at all,” he said with a shudder. “Now stop hogging the Doritos or I won’t share the mocha mint chip ice cream in the freezer.”

“Oooh, we have mocha mint chip?” She immediately handed the bag over, then got up and dug through the freezer.

She returned with the carton of ice cream and two spoons. Buffy was still stunned by how much she was enjoying herself. Spike couldn’t hurt anyone, so maybe… maybe it was okay to actually kind of… like this one specific vampire. Maybe that was going too far, but it was okay to have fun with him. Wasn’t it?

_No more thinky thoughts,_ she told herself firmly. Tonight, Buffy Summers was being a whale. Tomorrow night, she was going out. Beyond that… well, she hadn’t gotten there yet. Buffy settled in and focused on just relaxing for once and being Buffy.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some scenes and dialogue from the Episode “Fool for Love”

Buffy slowly drifted up from a surprisingly peaceful sleep. She wasn’t aware of much at first, just that she was cuddled against someone, and it felt nice. She fit against whoever it was just right. She nuzzled the shoulder her head was resting on, then froze as the memory of the night before surfaced.

She slowly opened her eyes. _Oh, boy,_ she thought in dismay, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Spike was leaning back against the couch, fast asleep, and she was cuddled up against him, her head on his shoulder and her hand splayed across his lower belly. Right over where she’d seen the purple glow during her trance. She fought the urge to lift up his shirt and touch him skin to skin.

 _No, Buffy. Bad,_ she thought. It was bad enough she’d fallen asleep on him – she vaguely remembered thinking about resting her eyes after he’d already conked out, but nothing really beyond that – but getting all touchy-feely after waking up? So not of the good. She was pretty sure Spike waking up to her all over him like this would trigger a panic attack.

While she’d been mentally scolding herself, her hand – which apparently had a mind of its own, and a really stupid one at that – had started lightly rubbing Spike. She snatched it away and slowly sat up, praying the entire time that he wouldn’t wake up. She breathed a sigh of relief once she made it to the far end of the couch.

Spike was still asleep, looking as peaceful as she’d felt when she’d first woken up. Huh. Now that she thought about it, she still felt relatively peaceful. Last night had been great. She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed something like that. Between school, patrolling, her mother’s illness, the situation with Spike, and researching the ritual and Dawn’s keyness, she’d been running herself ragged.

 _I may have to take the semester off,_ she thought reluctantly. She’d really been enjoying the whole college thing, but well…. _At the very least, I think I need to go ahead and give up the dorm room. I haven’t been using it, and that’s money that can go to Mom’s headache meds or saved for the baby._

She took a deep breath and pushed the thoughts away. One day at a time. Today, she was the Buffy Summers who would be going on a “date” later in the day. She needed to figure out a good place to go and see what movies were playing. She also needed to ask her friends if they’d be willing to cover patrol for her. Guilt stabbed at her. Maybe she could incorporate some light patrolling into the plans for the evening? She pushed those thoughts away for the moment as well.

She was going to go out and have fun with Spike. _For the baby,_ she hastily thought. A night out would reduce his stress levels, which would be good for the baby. So would bonding with him in general. She knew firsthand how much it sucked to have parents who didn’t get along. _Definitely not putting our baby through that,_ she vowed.

Spike twitched suddenly and whimpered. Buffy hesitantly reached out and put her hand on his, gently running her thumb along the back of his wrist. It was something he’d reminded “Dru” about, and it seemed to help him just as much as it had his crazy ex. He went still and quiet.

 _It’s for the baby,_ she told herself firmly. _Have to keep him calm for the baby._ She was still telling herself that fifteen minutes later when Dawn came down the stairs.

 

**…**

 

“You cut off his head with an exacto knife?” Spike said in sincere admiration as he looked at the young woman sitting across from him. He’d always appreciated her creativity in a fight, but cutting off a vampire’s head with an exacto knife when she’d been _fifteen_? Just a bitty baby of a slayer and she’d already had more style than most of the Council raised girls. “That’s something I’ve always liked about you, Summers. That ability to think outside the box.”

The Slayer glanced up from her plate of cheese fries, looking oddly shy. They’d settled on the Bronze as a good place for the dinner part of the dinner and a movie, even though they mostly just had appetizers and munchies. The food it did have was pretty bloody good, they made a fantastic cherry coke by adding syrup and maraschino cherries to the plain stuff, and – most importantly – it had sewer access. It was still daylight out, but he’d been able to get to the club with only the slightest bit of singeing.

He’d have to go the sewer route again to get to the theater, but it would be dark by the time the movie was over. They planned a light patrol on the way back to check on Joyce and the Nibblet, followed by a more in-depth one. Sounding like a right nice little evening out to him.

“Really? Xander was kind of freaked out when I started to tell him that story.” Buffy’s expression turned thoughtful. “Of course, he’d only just found out about vampires, so it might have been way too much way too soon.”

Spike laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, that might have been just a bit much for the boy all at once.” He grinned at her. “You ‘member that first Halloween I was here? When everyone became their costumes?”

Buffy winced at the reminded. “Oh, god, I was so pathetic that night. I dressed up like a fancy little noblewoman so Angel would like me more.” She flashed him a wry little smile. “Of course, then I find out after that he wasn’t really into that type.”

“Told you that, did he?” Spike said with as much neutrality as he could muster. Of course the wanker would have said that. Wouldn’t want his bird knowing he had a taste for innocent, unworldly little things. Not that Buffy was unworldly, but the silly little chit she’d become definitely had been. He shook his head at her questioning look and continued on with the actual point of the trip down memory lane. “Before that, you, uh, fought one of my minions in a pumpkin patch. Had another there to record the whole thing.”

“You recorded that?” Her jaw dropped at the information. Unable to resist, he snatched up one of her cheese fries and slid it into her open mouth.

“Watched it over and over again for hours.” He plucked a petal from his onion flower – which he’d slathered with minced pineapple and sardines brought from home at Dawn’s suggestion. He’d have to let her know that the experiment had turned out pretty good. – and popped it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully as he remembered that night. “Get bored pretty easily, I do, but not with that. I was impressed. Never saw a Slayer quite that resourceful. Throwing gourds at ‘im and then the bit with the sign…. Just perfect.”

Not even Nikki had been that impressive. Not that he was going to say that to Buffy. They were getting along fairly well at the moment, and talking about a fight to the death with one of her sister slayers was like to sour things just a bit, wasn’t it?

Buffy actually blushed a little and her heart rate increased. It was the reaction most women would have to being told they were beautiful. It was bloody adorable. “Well, I, I just used what was there, you know? I-it was no big, really.”

“No, it was a very big,” he contradicted. “I’ve taken a look at a lot of slayers, and found most of ‘em not worth my time. The Council of Wankers likes to train the creativity right out of ‘em for some reason. You, though….” He shook his head and smiled. “Too bad you didn’t dress up like a demon. Would have made a grand night even grander.”

She nearly choked on her diet coke and looked at him incredulously. “You _liked_ that night?”

“Well, yeah. Didn’t exactly end the way I’d’ve preferred, obviously, but all those little kiddie demons following me about? Hell of a good time while it lasted.”

“You are so weird,” she said in amusement as she grabbed one of their shared order of garlic cheese breadsticks.

“Same to you, Goldilocks,” he shot back. Not that being weird was a bad thing. Kept things from getting all boring-like.

“Jerk.” She stuck her lower lip out in a pout.

“Bitch.” His Willow-mojo’d self really had had a good point about that pouty lip. It was bloody adorable.

“Not a shrewish bitch this time?” she asked with a small smile.

“Not yet, but the night’s still young.”

“Technically, it hasn’t even started yet. It’s still day out,” she reminded him. Not that he needed the reminder. He was very much aware of the passage of the sun.

“Fair point, that.”

He’d actually always kind of been glad that Halloween night had gone the way it had, a few detours for random acts of mayhem with his new little friends holding him up just long enough that Buffy came back to herself before he could end her. Killing Buffy when she’d been like that would have been a pathetic waste. He’d still have done it – anything for his dark princess – and enjoyed it, but it wouldn’t have had the same zing as if he’d actually fought her.

It was the _fight_ that drew him in like a moth to flame. Pitting himself against someone specifically designed to destroy his kind, never knowing if he’d win or go out in a blaze of glory. God, what a rush. He sometimes thought that, of all the things the Initiative had taken from him, he missed fighting the Slayer the most.

The last time he’d tried anything even close to fighting her flashed through his mind, and his awareness of the human crowd suddenly flipped. Gone from predator in the midst of prey to prey surrounded on all sides by predators. Any of them could do whatever they bloody well pleased to him, and all he had to fight back with were words and attitude. He _hated_ feeling helpless. It was all too reminiscent of his life as a human.

He grabbed one of the breadsticks and savagely bit into it, letting the burn of the garlic distract him from his thoughts. Damn good stuff, garlic was. He’d built up a tolerance to it over the decades. Still hurt like a wicked bitch to eat it, but it was a good sort of pain.

“Hey, you doing okay?” Buffy asked him, seeming both concerned and wary. He couldn’t really blame her for that. He’d been a bit snappish and moody lately.

He just shrugged and took another bite of breadstick. Hmm…. _Built up a tolerance._ He tilted his head and studied the Slayer. He’d jumped like a right nancy-boy git when she’d bumped into him yesterday, but that honestly had been more of a startle reaction than anything. If she didn’t lunge or grab at him, didn’t startle him….

He’d woken up just a little at the feel of her head thudding softly against his shoulder in the early morning hours. He’d felt a vague sense of unease, but not enough to keep from falling back asleep. And the feel of her hand settling over the barely noticeable lump o’ sprog had been oddly comforting, soothing him deeper into slumber rather than pulling him back out.

Seemed like he was already starting to build up a tolerance to her. If he actively tried a few things, maybe had her…. His train of thought was derailed by a song with a good beat to it. He stood up abruptly and held his hand out to Buffy. She looked at it in confusion, then up at him.

“Um… Spike? What…?”

“Come on, Slayer,” he said challengingly with a smirk. “Let’s dance.”

 

**…**

 

“Fun little movie, that,” Spike said contemplatively as they walked home.

Buffy eyed him, fighting back an impish smile. “I don't know, I still say we should have watched The Little Vampire. It looked... cute.”

Spike snorted and shook his head. “Cute and ever so accurate, what with the flying cows and all,” he said dryly.  

Buffy giggled. _Oh, god, I'm giggling with_ Spike, she thought, only vaguely dismayed. She'd had a great night so far. They'd danced together, though not to any of the slow songs. She was kind of glad about that. The man practically oozed sex when he really moved. Which she had always kind of known. It was like that when they'd fought, too. It had just been a little easier to ignore when they'd been trying to kill each other.

When it had come to movies, their choices had pretty much been The Little Vampire or The Legend of Drunken Master. They had, of course, gone with the Jackie Chan kung fu movie. It had been a nice sort of continuation of the night before.

“I have to say, though,” she said, “it was a bit weird watching a movie with evil British people in it while trading snarky comments with an evil British person.” Some of what they’d watched the night before had had the same type of villains, but it had been oddly more noticeable while watching at a theater.

She continued on for a moment before realizing Spike had stopped. She looked over her shoulder at him. He was doing that head tilt thing and just sort of watching her. What had she said? He _was_ evil and proudly admitted it. Was it the British thing? The few times she’d heard him refer to his nationality, he’d said he was English. It seemed like a weird thing to get snippy about, but Spike’s moods had been all over the place lately. Except… he didn’t actually _look_ snippy. He looked… thoughtful. _Person,_ she realized suddenly. _I called him a person._

He visibly shook off whatever he was thinking and caught up with her. They continued on towards her house in silence. She was starting to think of Spike as a person, instead of the possessed corpse of some poor guy who’d been murdered over a century ago. She wondered, suddenly, who William had been before he’d been turned into Spike.

She’d once told Willow – and had been backed up by Angel – that vampires were nothing like the humans they had once been. Except… Angel had kind of stumbled over his agreement there. She’d noticed it at the time, but she’d sort of squirreled it away in the back of her mind as too disturbing to think about.

Angel and Angelus were just way too different for that to be true. Weren’t they? She frowned uneasily as she remembered how smoothly Angel had slid into that persona when they’d been trying to trick Faith. It had been like watching an otter dive into an icky river of evil. And then there was all that stuff from that one Christmas….

“Would have been even better with some booze,” Spike said, a sort of wistful regret in his tone. “Seems unnatural not to be drunk when watching somethin’ called The Legend of Drunken Master.”

Buffy gratefully jumped on the distraction from her uncomfortable thoughts. “Well, you know, by the time you can have alcohol again, it should be rentable. I’ll buy you some beer or something, and we’ll watch it again.”

She imagined an endless string of movie nights used as a way to bond as they got their kid all the way from babyhood to college. It really didn’t seem like all that bad of a proposition. Huh.

“Might just hold you to that, Summers,” he said with a slight smile as they approached the front door.

A quick glance into the living room from the entryway revealed Dawn watching TV, but no sign of Mom. Buffy hurried up the stairs, Spike following along behind her. She knew – despite her mother’s attempts to hide it – that the headaches were still bothering her.

“I’m going to check on Mom,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Spike. “Could you grab a few more weapons for us for patrol?”

“On it,” he said, heading into her room while Buffy went into the master bedroom.

Her mom was packing a suitcase. Why was her mom packing a suitcase? Was she going on a buying trip? Usually she was told about those. Had she forgotten?

“Oh, hi, Buffy,” Mom said with a tired smile as she looked up. “Did you and Spike have fun?”

“What? Oh, yeah, it was lots of fun, actually. Um… where are you going?” This really didn’t seem like a buying trip. What was going on? Memories of her dad packing up a bag before the divorce chased each other through her mind.

“Oh, um, well,” her mother fidgeted nervously. “I was hoping to put this off, but you know the nothing I’ve been dealing with for the past couple of weeks? It… it might not be nothing.”

 _Might not be nothing_. The words echoed through Buffy’s mind. _Might not be nothing._ No, no, no, no. Her mom couldn’t really be sick. Despite what Spike had told her after the trance, moms didn’t just get sick. They _didn’t_.

“What is it?” she heard her voice ask. The person using her voice sounded really calm. Good for them.

“I’m staying overnight for observation. There’s going to be a CAT scan.” Mom smiled again, the expression full of reassurance and love. “It’s going to be okay. Whatever this is, it’s still very early since they didn’t catch it before. I’m going to be just fine, okay?”

Buffy nodded numbly. _See?_ she told herself. _She’s going to be just fine. She said so._ She forced a smile onto her own face. “Okay…. I, um… I need to go patrol.”

She stumbled out of the room, intending to go outside for a few minutes. She’d sit out on the porch and just be alone to think. She needed to think. Her feet ignored her plans and headed for her bedroom. Stupid feet.

She barely noticed Spike poking through the weapon chest in her closet as she sat down on the edge of the bed. She hated hospitals. They were places of death and misery, and her mother was going to be spending the night in one. What if something went wrong and she never came back out? She put her head in her hands and sobbed.

“Slayer? Buffy, what’s wrong?” Spike was suddenly there, sitting beside her.

“Mom... Mom’s going in for observation,” she answered. Part of her wanted to keep the news to herself, as if not sharing it would make it all okay, but Spike was – at the very least – part of the household and deserved to know what was going on. Did Dawn know?

Spike didn’t say anything, just put a hesitant hand on her shoulder. She dropped her own hands and looked up at him, feeling like an insect pinned in place by the understanding in his eyes. She remembered suddenly what she’d figured out right after the trance. His mom had been sick. He knew what she was going through. He’d been there, done that. He… had really pretty eyes.

That thought came out of seemingly nowhere, but she latched onto it, leaning towards him to get an even better look. A nice, vivid blue with the kind of long lashes a lot of women would kill for. And this close, she could tell that he’d definitely stolen her eyeliner.

She couldn’t seem to pull her gaze away from his face. He really was nice to look at. She took a deep breath to steady herself, but that only made things worse. He smelled good. Like wood smoke and leather with a hint of summer thunderstorms and the earthiness of vampire.

He was saying something now, but Buffy was too mesmerized by the movement of his lips to pay attention to the sounds they were making. She remembered the feel of them against hers during Willow’s spell. Soft and firm at the same time. She leaned closer, her eyes drifting closed as she kissed him. It felt so good, to just _connect_ with someone.

She gently gripped his shoulders, and he tensed. It hit her like a bucket of ice water. Oh god, she was kissing Spike. He didn’t even like her accidentally brushing against him, and she was _kissing_ him. She jerked away, expecting panic but seeing only confusion in his eyes. That did nothing for her own panic.

 _Not another vampire,_ her mind wailed. She couldn’t…. _No, no, no._ This was wrong, so wrong in so many ways. She surged to her feet and fled from the room, darting down the stairs and out the door into the night.

 

**…**

 

Spike watched Buffy practically fly out of the room, too stunned to even call after her. What the hell? She had kissed him. What the bloody buggering _hell_? _Just all out of sorts about her mum,_ he told himself. _She just...._ Had kissed him.

She had known he was in the room. She could have gone into Dawn’s to have a nice cry. Hell, she could have just gone outside for a spell. Instead, she’d come in here. To him. And then she’d kissed him.

He had tensed when she put her hands on him, but during the kiss itself…. He shivered slightly, remembering the feel. Just a feather light moment of contact. He hadn’t panicked. He hadn’t jerked away or felt the overwhelming sense of not being able to protect himself. He…. God help him, he’d wanted to kiss her back.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some scenes and dialogue from the Episode “Shadow”

_She watched, unable to move, as the snake slithered towards her unknowing sister, sleeping in the grass. Buffy tried to cry out, but she had no voice. The snake opened its mouth to swallow its prey, but a heavy boot crunched down on its skull._

_Dawn and snake faded, leaving behind a shimmering green key and, strangely, a red dress. Spike scooped them up and tucked them into his pocket before looking at Buffy. A little girl with curly brown hair and big blue eyes peered out from behind him._

_The two turned to go, and Buffy followed them into an old church._ _The little girl darted forward to press a hand against a large cross standing behind an altar. She took her hand away and held it up. Buffy was suddenly right next to her, taking the tiny hand in her own. The palm had pinkened, but there were no blisters or singeing._

_“No worries, pet,” Spike said, gently pulling Buffy away from the girl and directing her towards the altar. “Slayer sunblock works for holy objects, too.”_

_Four keys were spread out on the altar along with a locked box like the one the Gentlemen had used to capture voices. Was her voice locked in there?_

_“None of those keys will unlock it,” Spike whispered in her ear. He turned her around and tore open her shirt. A frisson of desire shivered through her as she was exposed, revealing her heart chained by two locks to the middle of her chest. One lock was open. The other had a rusty key jammed and broken off in the keyhole._

_Spike turned her to look at the keys. He pointed to a pair of brass keys that were nearly identical. One was topped with a tiny figurine of her father while the other was topped with one of Giles._

_“One key locked, and the other unlocked. That’s the nature of keys, you know. Very rarely does one do both.”_

_Buffy frowned. She was pretty sure he was wrong about that, that all keys did both things, but she couldn’t say it. Not with her voice locked away. The next two keys were nearly identical to each other. Big, heavy rusted things with angel wings at the top. One had been broken, the actual key part missing._

_She reached for the intact one, and it crumbled at her touch, revealing the smaller key hidden inside. It shimmered, flickering from black to white and all the shades of gray in between. She frowned at it. Even if the end of the other key hadn’t been stuck, this one wouldn’t have fit in the lock._

_“Look again, Slayer,” Spike whispered, tapping the lock. She looked down. There was a second keyhole, just the right size for the flickering key. “Even if you’re able to open it, love, you won’t be rid of the lock. Wrong key pierced all the way through to your heart. A piece of it will always be there.”_

_She reached for the key. A glass box sprung up around it before she could touch it._

_“Needs your voice, it does, to shatter the glass.”_

_Spike looked past her and pulled the green key and the red dress out of his pocket as Tara approached them from a wall of mist. The key turned into a shimmering ball of green sparkles as it and the dress were passed over to Tara. The energy solidified back into a green key, a shade deeper, more complex._

_“She’s a special key,” Tara said solemnly as she put it into Buffy’s hand. “She can unlock almost anything.” She cast a sad glance towards Buffy’s heart. “If you use her right, though, she can lock things up, too.”_

“Buffy?”

 

**…**

 

Buffy jerked awake at the sound of her own name. She was in the hospital waiting room, curled up awkwardly in one of the chairs. Dawn was holding out a soda towards her and looking worried.

“You okay?” Dawn asked as Buffy reached for the offered soda.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She shifted into a more comfortable position before opening the can and taking a long swallow. “Just a really weird dream.”

Her little sister’s eyes were wide as she sat down and opened her own soda. “Was it a slayer dream?”

“ _No_!” Buffy denied immediately. Except she was pretty sure it had been. Slayer dreams had a sort of vibe to them, and the dream had been vibing like crazy. “It was just a really, _really_ weird dream is all.”

They sat in silence, both of them drinking their sodas and lost in thought. Buffy didn’t want to think about the dream and its implications. She also really didn’t want to think about the test her mom was having right now. Her thoughts drifted to the kiss, another thing she didn’t particularly want to think about.

She and Dawn had both decided they’d be going to the hospital with Mom. As much as she hadn’t wanted to, Buffy had been the one to tell Spike, just in case he’d had some kind of delayed meltdown due to her actions. Neither Dawn nor her mom had been up to dealing with that. He’d been calm, though, and had told her that he wouldn’t press the issue about the kiss just yet out of respect for her mother, but they _would_ be talking later.

She was so not looking forward to that. She just wanted to pretend it had never happened. _It had to be the ritual,_ she decided. _It’s making me all… affectionate towards him._ None of the research had indicated the ritual would actually do something like that, but that had to be the case. Didn’t it?

“What _is_ a CAT scan, exactly?” Dawn asked, cutting into Buffy’s thoughts.

“I don’t know. It’s… some x-ray, I guess.”

“Where do they get the CAT scan from?” Dawn sounded nervous and even younger than she was. Or older, depending on how you considered it. Buffy bit her lip. She was pretty sure that the first part of her dream had been a warning that Dawn needed to know what she was. She couldn’t tell her yet. Not with Mom sick. “I mean, do they test it on cats? Or… or does the machine sort of look like a cat?”

“Dawn, I….” She trailed off at her sister’s anxious look and just pulled her close, stroking her hair.

“I wish Spike was here,” Dawn murmured in a small voice. “He has all kinds of cool stories he could distract me with.”

“It’s going to be okay,” Buffy said reassuringly, wondering just what kind of stories Spike had been filling her kid sister’s head with. Despite that and the complications from the kiss, she kind of wished he was there, too.

 

**…**

 

“...house near any powerlines, chemical plants, waste disposal?”

Buffy stared at the doctor blankly, overwhelmed by all of the questions. Was this stuff she was supposed to know? She didn’t know any of this. _I’m a terrible daughter,_ she thought numbly. “Uh… I-I don’t know. Maybe?”

The doctor didn’t look pleased by that answer. “Well, the more we know…”

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. Doctor Isaacs scowled and scribbled something on his clipboard. She felt like a lost, stupid kid. She wanted her mommy.

The feelings were suddenly tempered with relief as Ben approached where she and the doctor were sitting. He smiled at her reassuringly before focusing on the doctor. “Excuse me, Doc, but they told me you were needed in ICU.”

“Excuse me, Miss Summers,” the doctor said, getting up and briskly walking away.

“Uh, it’s okay,” Buffy said to his retreating back.

Ben sat down beside her and lightly patted her shoulder. “Thought you looked like you needed a break. He’s a great doctor, but he doesn’t seem to have the bone in his head that tells him when to back off.”

“He, um, he was just telling me there was nothing I could do.” She hated feeling like this. Powerless and unable to do anything. She wished she could just beat her mother’s illness into submission.

“Yeah.” Ben sighed. “I’m going to tell you the same thing. Your mom’s going to be unconscious for another seven hours or so. Give yourself a break. You’ve got a lot going on in your life right now.”

Buffy’s wry little smile was weak, but there. “Yeah, that’s an understatement.” She sighed and ran a hand through her head. “Thanks. For your help with all this stuff. And, and with the doctor and all.”

“Hey, no problem.” Ben smiled back at her. “I like helping people.” He hesitated a moment, then asked, “How are you and Spike doing?”

“We’re fi-” She stopped the automatic reassurance and looked at him. He was acting as their therapist. She needed to be honest with him. “Things were going pretty good, actually. We, we were getting along. And then, um….” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I kissed him.”

Ben’s eyes widened, but his voice was neutral when he spoke. “How’d he react?”

“Not bad, actually. He, um, tensed up when I grabbed his shoulders, but, but other than that… he just sort of looked confused.” She looked down quietly at her shoes for a moment. “He wants to talk about it, once Mom is out of the hospital.”

“That seems reasonable.”

She sighed and rubbed her face. “Yeah,” she said wearily. “The guy who could get all mood-swingy even _before_ I knocked him up is the reasonable one right now.”

“Go home,” Ben said gently. “Rest and come back later when you’re feeling a little better. Maybe work out some issues in your training room.”

She nodded and slowly stood up. Her training room. The Magic Box. Magic. Could magic help her mom? They had to have healing spells, or strengthening herbs or something. She remembered Tara talking about being able to strengthen the herbs she’d need to start taking if she wanted to breastfeed the baby.

Buffy glanced at Dawn and bit her lip, trying to decide what to do. There was just enough time to get Dawn to school, but she looked so worried and anxious. She’d never be able to focus on her classes. Buffy couldn’t take her to the Magic Box – she didn’t want to get the younger girl’s hopes up about magic just in case it didn’t work out – and there was no one else…. _Spike,_ she thought suddenly.

She could take Dawn home and leave her with Spike. He’d already proved beyond any doubt that he’d protect her sister. She felt the stirring of the ritual at the thought of putting the baby in danger by leaving Spike to guard Dawn. _Nothing is going to go after her at the house. He’s just there so Dawnie won’t be alone right now,_ she told herself firmly.

She took a deep breath to help herself seem calm and in control and went over to collect her sister.

 

**…**

 

Spike paced the living room, the telly a nice bit of background noise. It didn’t do much to settle his thoughts, though. He ran a hand through his already thoroughly mussed hair. Despite the thoughts about the kiss chasing themselves through his mind like rabid squirrels, and his worry for Joyce – the Summers ladies were _his_ , damn it. Only he got to hurt them, not some sodding illness – he’d managed a bit of kip.

He shivered slightly, thinking about the dream he’d had. Buffy holding Thursday’s tiny little hand in hers, inspecting the minor damage from a cross. Buffy staring at him mutely while he ripped open her shirt, exposing her perky little breasts and her chained up heart.

God, she’d been beautiful, even with that rusty key jammed into her like an infected splinter. His thoughts flashed back to the feel of her warm mouth on his, then further back to Red’s spell. He could almost feel her in his arms, warm and soft in just the right places despite her warrior’s physique. Her hands on his shoulders as she held him down and –

 _No!_ He growled at himself in anger and wrenched his thoughts back to Willow’s spell. The Slayer in his lap, sweet and loving. He forced himself to replay all the snuggles and kisses, clenching his fists and fighting past the rising feeling of panic. Fight or flight, and he couldn’t fight. Not against a human. Even a super powered human meant to destroy his kind.

He could bloody well do this. He’d managed to get past all the nasty little games Angelus and Darla had been so fond of. Why was this giving him trouble? _‘Cause you couldn’t fight, mate,_ he realized. Not beyond the first punch he’d tried, anyway. _Couldn’t even control how you felt during the whole thing. All about control, innit?_

The front door opened suddenly, breaking into his thoughts. Buffy and Dawn. They both looked exhausted and scared, though Buffy was trying to hide it. Dawn gave him a weak, brave little smile.

“Hi, Spike,” she said. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Your mum?” he asked. Based on their expressions and scents, it was bad, but not hopeless.

“She, um.” Dawn faltered, her voice cracking. Little spitfire was struggling to stay burning under the deluge of maternal distress.

“She has a tumor,” Buffy said quietly, finishing when it became clear Dawn couldn’t. “In her brain. A brain tumor.”

Dawn took a shuddering breath and walked to the couch, dropping heavily on it to stare blankly at whatever show was playing. Buffy watched her, a protective and tender expression on her face.

“I was going to go to the Magic Box,” the Slayer continued. She sounded lost, her voice a little wobbly. “I think… I think I might need a nap. Could you…?”

“No worries, pet,” Spike said, knowing what she was asking. “I’ll keep little sis company. Tell her some stories to keep her mind off your mum and what-all.”

She nodded her thanks and started towards the steps.

“Buffy!” he called out, not entirely sure what he wanted to say. _What was that kiss all about? You feel up to helping me get over this annoying little flinching problem? Don’t worry, your mum’s gonna pull through._ “You, uh…. Wide awake at the mo, so you can take the bed. If, if you want.”

She stared at him for a moment before swallowing like she was wetting a suddenly dry throat. “Thank you.”

He watched her go up the stairs, his emotions a confusing, tangled mess. He drew in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. God, he wanted a smoke. And some booze. He sighed and went to the kitchen for some blood and pineapple chunks.

 

**…**

 

Buffy snuggled into her own bed for the first time in over three weeks. It felt a little strange, and it smelled different. Like Spike. She breathed deeply, drawing in the same scent she’d noticed when she’d kissed him. It was oddly comforting. She closed her eyes and drifted down into the interrupted slayer dream.

_She was in a small bedroom with Tara, a blurry masculine figure asleep on a narrow bed. His chest had been replaced with an ornate box with an open, lockable lid. Tara led her to the sleeping man and carefully folded the red dress she held before tucking it inside._

_“You know what to do,” Tara said._

_And she was right. Buffy knew exactly what to do. She cut her hand with the green key before closing the lid. She slid it into the lock and turned it, feeling something within the whole of the world click into place. She removed the key and pressed it to the pulsing organ chained to her chest. It slid inside, where it belonged._

_The dream changed. Dawn played in a sunny meadow with a little girl in sunglasses and protective clothing. A black and white figure watched them from the heavy shadows of the nearby trees. Buffy wanted to join them. To play with Dawn and the little girl she was sure was hers._

_A hand landed heavily on her shoulder, weighing her down. “She’s part vampire,” Angel’s voice murmured near her ear. He sounded sad and oddly self-righteous as he slipped a stake into her hand. “You’ll always have to be on guard. Watching for the evil to consume her. It’d be best just to end it now.”_

_The little girl screamed, her gaze on the stake, and ran towards the figure in the shadows. Buffy tried to drop the stake and to call out to her, but she could do neither. There was suddenly another hand on her shoulder, this one gentle and supportive._

_“You have to free your voice,” Tara said compassionately._

_Buffy could feel it now, something burning inside her chest where her heart should have been. She knew, in the way of dreams, that it was the key that would unlock her voice. She tried to plunge her hand into the empty cavity._

_“No, Buffy, don’t!” Angel called out in anguish, grabbing her wrist and trying to pull her hand away. “This isn’t what I want for you. You need to have a normal life. I told you that, remember?”_

_Another hand grabbed her wrist. Riley. “Good little girls don’t need voices.” He grinned boyishly at her. “That’s what us big, strong men-folk are for.”_

_More hands grabbed her forearm._

_Quentin Travers sneered at her. “A slayer is just a weapon. It doesn’t need a voice.”_

_“Buffy, you need to be careful,” Willow’s concerned voice. “We only want what’s best for you.”_

_“Really, Buffster? Another vampire?” Xander, sounding disgusted and disappointed. “Normal just not good enough for you?”_

_“Really, Buffy, I think you would have learnt your lesson after what happened to Jenny.” Giles’s sad disapproval sliced at her exposed heart, making her bleed and hesitate. She’d been without her voice for so long already. Did she really need it?_

_“Look,” Tara breathed, gently turning Buffy’s head to the side._

_She looked through a door that led to her bedroom. Spike was there with the little girl, packing up their things._

_“Do we hafta go, Daddy?” the girl asked. “Is Mummy coming, too?”_

_“Sorry, kitten,” he said gruffly, “but your mum don’t want us around. We’ll head off someplace she can’t find us.” And they vanished._

_“Free your voice,” Tara insisted. “Make your own path.”_

_Buffy took a deep breath and shoved her hand into her chest. God, it_ hurt _, but she kept it up. She was almost there. Almost –_

She was jerked from sleep by a loud sound downstairs as something crashed through the door.

 

**…**

 

“…So, this demon wants a swordfight to appease his honor or somesuch – I wasn’t really paying attention to the particulars – and seeing as how it had been a right boring night so far, I took him up on it, yeah?” Spike said. Dawn stared at him like he was the only thing in the universe as she snagged some kippers and pineapple chunks from the bowl between them. “I fight with him for a bit with the sword in my right hand, having a right lark of a time. And then sod all if he doesn’t give me the perfect set up and asks, ‘what are you smilin’ about?’ So I tell him, ‘I know somethin’ you don’t know, mate.’”

He paused for a minute to take a quick drink of cherry coke. He couldn’t die of thirst or anything, but that didn’t keep a bloke’s throat from getting dry, now did it? “Being an uncultured lout, he’s never seen The Princess Bride, so he’s no idea what I’m on about. I switch the blade to my left hand,” he tossed an imaginary sword from his right hand to his left, “and I say, ‘I bloody well _am_ left handed, you stupid berk.’ Bugger still looked completely confused when I lopped his head off.”

“That is _so_ cool!” Dawn squealed. “Was there blood everywhere? Ooh, what color was it? Was it red like a human’s, or, or, like green or something, like a Vulcan?”

She really was a cute little thing, wasn’t she? Like a half grown kitten bounding about and poking its nose into everything around it. And she liked his stories, which was a definite sign of high intelligence, he’d always thought. Before he could answer with all the gory details, he heard something outside.

It was an odd sound, a sort of slithering. Like a snake only larger. Much larger. Then something thudded against the door. Spike caught a whiff of reptile before there was a crunching, splintering sound as a giant snake creature with arms like a human burst through the door. Its gaze instantly locked on Dawn as she screamed.

Surprise and a wild glee at the thought of a good fight surged through him as the weird dream suddenly came to mind. He knew, with absolute certainty, that something terrible would happen to Dawn if the creature wasn’t killed. Spike growled, his territorial instinct rising to the fore as he lunged at the creature.

He heard the sound of a door opening from upstairs, and an axe wielding Buffy pounded down the stairs a moment later. The sight of her, ready for battle, sent an almost sexual thrill tingling through him. He had to remind himself forcefully that she wasn’t the opponent. They were fighting together, not against each other, a prospect he had to admit was almost as good. She immediately jumped into the fray, a glorious whirlwind of graceful fury as she attacked, hacking and slashing at the snake monster.

He moved with her, staying to her left so neither of them fouled the other’s reach on their dominant sides. It was like a dance, even better than the ones at the Bronze. Those had been pale and insipid compared to a proper fight. It couldn’t last forever though, so Spike took his opening when he saw it. He grabbed the snake by the head and forced it down, stomping on its skull hard enough to stun the beast so the Slayer could deliver the killing blow. Buffy brought the axe down on its neck, severing it.

She looked up at him, her cheeks flushed, eyes bright and wild, and lips slightly parted as she panted for breath after the short, intense battle. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of those lips. The heat of battle still thudded through him, seeming to throb in his veins like the pulse he didn’t have. It would be so easy. She was right there. He could just lean down and kiss her, take her as the spoils of war.

“Wh-what is that thing?” Dawn asked, her voice high and childlike. She was standing in the middle of the living room, staring at the snake.

Spike abruptly stepped away from Buffy, taking a deep breath to steady himself. Good god, he’d almost kissed the Slayer. _Yeah, you’ve got it bad,_ he thought in vague disgust. He shook his head and focused on the Bit. Girl was freaked out, and understandably so. He looked back at Buffy.

“We have to tell her,” he insisted. They should have told her as soon as they’d found out. _She’s a right to know what she is. What’s goin’ on all about her._ He’d hated being kept out of the loop about the ritual and he knew it would be worse the longer they kept things from Dawn.

Buffy closed her eyes and nodded. “I wanted to tell Mom first, but… yeah. We do need to tell her.”

“T-tell me what?” Dawn demanded, her voice reaching that shrill pitch that seared right through his brain. When she really got going, it was almost as bad as the bloody chip.

Buffy sighed wearily and dropped her axe on the monster’s corpse. She slowly walked towards her sister. “Dawn, sweetie….” She stopped, obviously trying to find the right words. “You remember I told you that there was something I was keeping from you?”

“What is it?” Dawn was pale, almost looking like she’d be sick all over the carpet. Her heart was racing and the delicious scent of fear rolled off of her like a heady perfume. “Is… is it something bad?”


	17. Chapter 17

“… is it something bad?” Dawn stared in a sort of numb terror at her sister as she asked the question. A horrible snake monster had burst into the house, and it had something to do with her.

Had the snake monster been someone she knew? Were her classmates turning into monsters that had to be killed, like when the swim team at Sunnydale High had started turning into murderous fish people? Was _she_ going to end up a snake monster? Considering the last secret she’d found out about, it didn’t seem all that farfetched. People turning into physical monsters made a heck of a lot more sense than her sister being forcibly turned into a rapist.

“It’s not.... _You’re_ not bad, Dawn, okay?” Buffy said, gently putting a hand on her shoulder and turning her away from the snake and discarded weapon in the doorway. “Just, just sit down, honey, and I’ll explain everything.”

Dawn dropped down heavily on the couch, fighting the impulse to cover her ears and scream at the top of her lungs so she wouldn’t be able to hear whatever her sister was going to say. It couldn’t be good. Buffy wouldn’t be being this nice if it was something good. She was going to turn into something icky, and she was gonna be slayed by her own sister.

The phone rang, and Buffy flickered a glance at Spike. He sighed theatrically and trudged towards the phone, but the look he gave Buffy didn’t match his melodramatics. The look caused a squirmy, disgusting feeling in Dawn’s gut, but she latched onto it and the implications. It was better than thinking about whatever it was that was going to happen to her.

She thought of the fight she’d just seen. Watching the two of them kill the snake thing together had been… weird and kind of disturbing. Spike had been giving Buffy looks like he was starving and she was an all you can eat pineapple and fresh human blood buffet. It reminded her of the weird boy in her science class who kept practically drooling over her.

She’d almost expected him to offer up its head to Buffy as some kind of gruesome courting gift. That was just _wrong_. He shouldn’t be acting that way towards someone who had… had _violated_ him. Had he ended up with Stockholm Syndrome or something?

“Dawn?”  Dawn focused on Buffy as she spoke. “Okay, the main thing to keep in mind is that, no matter what, we’re _sisters_. Okay?”

The anxiety in Buffy’s voice and her insistence on the family relationship made Dawn horribly certain that they weren’t. Had she been adopted? Her mouth was suddenly too moist, like she was about to upchuck all over the place. Why had she thought sharing Spike’s pineapple and kippers was a good idea? Throwing up pineapple and weird British fish was going to be so gross.

Oh god, what if the snake monster had been one of her real parents? Had she just watched as her mom – or dad – was murdered right in front of her? Had her parents been evil? Was _she_ evil? No, Buffy had said she wasn’t bad. Maybe, maybe snake demon things could be _good_ if they were raised in a human family. Or maybe that was how they did things? They left their babies on human doorsteps to be raised until they were ready to be all snakey.

She _had_ started feeling different recently. Like all of her thoughts and feelings were more… _there_. Like they had an intensity and weight they’d never had before. She’d thought it was just because she’d hit puberty, but maybe she was getting all demony?

“This is going to be kind of hard to explain,” Buffy continued.  “Right, okay.” She ran a hand through her hair. “The thing is –”

“I’ve figured it out,” Dawn interrupted just as Spike came back over to the couch. He was holding an unopened can of cherry coke. “I’m, I’m some kind of snake demon thingy left on the doorstep, and that’s my mom or dad dead in the entryway.” She tried to sound calm and accepting, but it came out kind of hysterical. So much for maturity.

Spike shot Buffy an incredulous look while she stared at Dawn in slack-jawed surprise. “What the bloody hell did you tell her?”

Did that mean she _wasn’t_ a snake demon? She was both relieved and weirdly more anxious. Snake demon doorstep baby was at least an answer, not some nebulous _thing_ hovering over her.

“Nothing!” Buffy protested. “I hadn’t gotten that far yet. I just told her we were sisters, no matter what.”

Spike sighed heavily and put his free hand over his eyes. The other held the cherry coke out to Dawn. She took it, eyes wide with surprise. The only one he shared them with was Xander, and that was because he was Spike’s supplier. She got a mental image of Xander dealing various coke products in a smelly back alley and had to fight back a fit of hysterical giggles.

“You suck at this, Slayer,” Spike said. “Scoot, Bit.” Dawn scooted closer to Buffy, and he sat down beside her. “Had a whole convo with your watcher – givin’ a late heads up on our snakey friend there – and all you managed is, ‘we’re totally, really sisters,’?” He rolled his eyes. “No wonder little sis got such a barmy idea.”

“What, you think you could do better?” Buffy huffed defensively.

“Yeah, I do.” He focused his full attention on Dawn. She opened her soda and drank to soothe her suddenly dry throat. “Big sis is the Slayer, yeah? Makes her all kinds of special. I bet you’ve envied that at times.” She nodded slowly, and he continued. “Been lots of slayers before her, and there’ll be lots after. Hell, there’s even another running about somewhere. You though…. You’re unique, pidge. Just the one of you.”

“Just the....” Dawn had to gulp down more of the soda before she could say anything more. “Wh-what am I?”

“Near as I can tell, human. But you’re also apparently some kind of key,” Spike said bluntly, then he deftly caught her drink before it could spill.

The key? She was the key they’d been researching? That couldn’t be.... She wasn’t…. “But, but the baby’s the key, isn’t it?” Her voice came out in an embarrassing squeak. “That’s why...why you let yourself get tortured… isn’t it?”

She remembered how horrible he’d looked when Buffy had brought him home. He’d done that for his kid, right? Not for her. He couldn’t have been hurt like that because of _her_.

“Yeah, no. That’s what I thought at first too, but that whole fertility ritual was just sod’s law havin’ a gay old time at my expense.” His voice was a mix of grumpy and darkly amused. “Figured that out right quick, even before the bitch in red decided her home décor was seriously lacking in captive vampires.”

“I’m a key,” Dawn whispered. She couldn’t wrap her head around that. “What… what does that even _mean_?”

“We’re not entirely sure,” Buffy said quietly. “All we really know is that until a couple months ago, you weren’t… you. The monks who were guarding the key made it into you and created a bunch of memories.”

Dawn swallowed, feeling sick again. “I’m not… real? I’m not human? That can’t….”

Spike sighed and pinched her, hard. She yelped, eyes widening at his wince of pain. It had hurt him to hurt her. “Don’t do that!” she shrieked, jumping to her feet. “Don’t.... You already got hurt because of me. You shouldn’t….”

He waved her protest away. “Barely a twinge, Bit. Proves you’re human, though, no matter what you used to be.” He cocked his head. “Gotta wonder why they made you human. Why not a tree, or grains of sand? The crazy bint don’t seem able to sense or track you…. So, why human?”

Dawn slowly sat back down. She felt numb. She couldn’t think. She could listen though. Spike had a nice voice and a really cool accent. She’d listen to him talk. That wasn’t hard at all.

“Interesting question, innit?” Spike said contemplatively. He shifted to lean closer to her. “Only two reasons spring to mind. Human’s closest to what you were, or.... Well, could be that these monks wanted you loved, cherished, and protected. Could be either or both, really.”

She nodded slowly. “Do… do the others know? Am I the last to know?” She always seemed to be the last the know everything. She was just a key. She didn’t _need_ to know things.

“Me an’ big sis found out at the same time. Haven’t said a word to anyone else. You need to decide right quick if you want ‘em to know. Told the watcher to bring the entire lot over to help with the cleanup and repair. Harris is bringin’ pizza. I thought you could use some after a shock like this. Should be up to you how much the others know.” He shot a dark look at Buffy, and Dawn remembered that he usually got kept out of the loop, too. She wondered if he would have been told about the key thing at all if he hadn’t been with Buffy when she found out.

Did she want anyone else to know? She wanted to run upstairs and hide under her blanket, pretending none of this was real. She wanted her mom, there and well and hugging her while telling her it had all been a bad dream. If everyone knew, she couldn’t just pretend it away. The part of her that had been trying to be more mature knew, though. They had to be told. She didn’t want anyone else hurt protecting her, but that was going to happen if they didn’t even know what they were supposed to be protecting.

“I think… I think they have to know,” she said, hugging herself. Buffy put an arm around her, and Dawn leaned into it, needing the comfort.

“It’s going to be okay, sweetie,” her sister said soothingly. “We’ve all had weird stuff in our lives. You’re still my little sister. You’ll _always_ be my little sister.”

Dawn clung to those words. Nothing really made sense anymore. Her mom – who wasn’t even really her mom – had a brain tumor, and she was some kind of mystic key thing. But Buffy had said they were still sisters, and Spike had proven that – no matter what else she might be – she was very much human.

_You’re Buffy’s little sister, and you’re human,_ she told herself firmly, trying to calm the panicking little girl at her core. That part of her wanted to throw a tantrum, to slice open her own skin and watch the blood flow, all to prove that she was _real_. That she existed. _I am real. I hafta be._ _I’m Buffy’s sister, Mom’s li’l pun’kin belly, and I’m human._

 

**…**

 

Always the way, wasn’t it? Never a bloody thing on the telly when you really didn’t want to be alone with your thoughts. Spike flipped through a couple more channels just to be sure, then – just barely resisting the urge to throw the remote through the screen – shut it off with an irritated sigh.

He stood up and started pacing, giving the front door a murderous glare whenever it was in his direct line of sight. The witches’ magic combined with Harris’s burgeoning carpentry skills had fixed it all up good as new. Nothing left to smash to bits without making a right mess of Joyce’s home.

The whole lot of them – minus Anya who had stayed to mind the shop (shame really, he rather liked the ex-demon. Honest, uncomplicated girl) – had shown up with the promised pizza. Harris had – not as surprisingly as it would have once been – stepped up when they’d been told what the Nibblet was. He’d been just as shocked as the others, but had recovered quickly, pointing out all of the weird things in their lives. Then he’d said the whole being a key thing just made Dawn an official Scooby before declaring an impromptu welcome to humanity and the Scooby Gang party.

Spike was neither of those things – and glad of it, thank you very much. Not like he needed or even wanted to be included in their silly little clique – but he’d still helped Dawn finish off a spicy meat combo with olives and extra anchovies. Girl had bloody good taste in food, she did.

Now, though, Buffy and Dawn were off seeing to their mum while the others were patrolling. Something _he_ should have been helping with. But no, what if he got a splinter or something without dearest Buffums there to keep an eye on him. Could hurt the sprog somehow, couldn’t it? So now he was alone in the house with nothing to do but be aggravated that he had nothing to do.

He sighed again and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on for tea. The go-to English cure-all for any type of bother. Have a bloody cup of tea, damn it. At least Joyce had stocked up on some nice loose leaf Assam. He wondered if they had any biscuits left to go with it, or if Dawn had eaten them all.

He had just found a half package of pecan sandies in the pantry when the front door opened. Dawn and Buffy stumbled in, both of them looking beyond tired. Even without everything else that had been going on, having a sick loved one would do that to you. At least hospitals these days actually helped people instead of being places where you went to die.

“Joyce still in hospital, then?” he asked. Dawn had been talking about wanting to bring her home, but she wasn’t with them.

Buffy stared at him blankly for a moment, then slowly answered. “Um… yeah. They, uh, wanted to observe her. For, for two weeks.” Her voice cracked a little as she spoke.

“We’re gonna be Giles’ing it for Thanksgiving again this year,” Dawn said in a dull voice. She managed a wavery little smile for him. “Hopefully I won’t hafta pull you to safety behind the couch this time while you squeal about bears.”

“I did not _squeal_ ,” Spike protested. Cheeky little thing, wasn’t she? Good on her. Meant she was doing her best not to let everything pull her down. “Just pointed out – with the proper amount of trepidation, mind you – that Buffy made a sodding _bear_ in the watcher’s living room. _You_ were the one squealin’.”

Of course, Dawn hadn’t actually been there, had she? He wondered what had originally happened that day. Had someone else pulled him behind the sofa, or had they just left him there on the floor after the chair he was tied to tipped over?

“Was not,” Dawn muttered before yawning hugely. He could smell the exhaustion coming off of her in waves, all of the fatigue toxins building up in her system. Added some nice flavor to the blood, though it left you sleepy after.  

He used to do that, from time to time. Run his prey to exhaustion, then drag her home. If you wrapped up in a blanket before draining the human dry, it kept the body warmer longer to snuggle with while you napped. Good times, back when he was a real vampire instead of this pathetic shadow of what he’d been.

The whistle of the kettle interrupted his thoughts, making all three of them jump.

“Come on, Dawn,” Buffy said. “We’ve both had a long night.” The Bit was tired enough that she went up without complaint. Buffy lingered a bit longer, watching as Spike went through the familiar routine of making tea. “I, um… just wanted to say thanks. For your help with telling Dawn.”

Then she headed up the stairs, leaving him alone with his thoughts again. _Control_ , he thought as he put a precise amount of milk and sugar into his cup. _It’s all about control._ Buffy didn’t have any over her mother’s illness. Had very little over the new instincts the ritual had left her with, and none at all over what it had made her do to him that night.

He’d thought he should postpone telling her about the idea he’d had during their not-a-date at the Bronze. Maybe he should go ahead with it after all. Not only would it help him get used to her touch, it would give Buffy back her feeling of control. It was something, he realized, that he wanted her to have.

Of course, that meant he would be at the mercy of her control. He gulped down the rest of his tea and put the cup in the sink before walking towards the foot of the stairs, turning lights off along the way. He stared up the stairway for a long moment, his fists clenched. Part of him was gibbering in panic at what he was about to do. He took a deep breath, shoved that part down, and went up the steps.

 

**…**

 

Buffy was exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep. She lay there on her bedding on the floor, staring at the ceiling while thoughts chased each other through her mind. Two weeks. Her mother was going to be in the hospital for two whole weeks. She’d been gone for that long before while on buying trips for the gallery, but that was different. This was…. Her mommy had a brain tumor.

She felt like a lost and scared little girl during a time when she needed to be an adult. She had to manage the household, take care of and protect Dawn, and get herself ready for impending parenthood. All of that while still being the Slayer and a college student. She was only nineteen. Why did she have to be an adult? She couldn’t even legally drink yet. Why was that? You could get married, sign up to die for your country, and vote, but you couldn’t get drunk. Why didn’t they just move it all to twenty-one? Then she could still be a kid.

Of course, she hadn’t really been a kid in a lot of respects since the moment she’d been chosen. Parts of her had been forced to maturity while others had been crushed under the burden. And then there were the parts that had been frozen, afraid to grow because of the constant hovering threat of death. She didn’t like thinking about those parts.

The door opened, and she quickly sat up, relieved to have her thoughts interrupted. She turned on the lamp on the nightstand to reveal Spike standing in the doorway, looking oddly nervous. Crap. That couldn’t be good.

She tried to convince herself that he was there to lay into her for not wanting him to patrol without her. An argument about that actually sounded kind of fun. They’d yell at each for a few minutes, flinging insults and witty barbs. She let herself imagine that for a brief moment, then let it go. Spike would have been angry if he wanted to argue about that, not nervous. Nervous meant he probably wanted to talk about The Kiss.

Now was _so_ not the time, and she felt oddly disappointed that he didn’t realize that. Maybe he did and just didn’t care. God, she was tired. She didn’t want to deal with this right now. She just wanted to sleep and not wake up until two weeks had passed. She was about to say just that when Spike started talking.

“Look, Slayer… Buffy, there’s no real way to ease into this, so I’m just gonna right out say it.” Buffy tensed, ready for him to bring up her kissing him. “I think we need to reenact… _it_. What happened.”

At first she thought he meant the kiss. Then she paled, feeling too hot, too cold, and nauseous all at the same time. In that context, the phrase “what happened” only had one real meaning between them. He was talking about the ritual. He wanted to reenact the rape.

“Are you out of your damn mind?” she asked incredulously. He could barely tolerate her touching him even when she asked first, and now he wanted her to pin him down and, and….

He’d gone crazy. It was the only explanation. The chaos that was her life right now must have driven him completely insane. Or maybe it was weird baby hormones. Hell, it could have been a combination of both. Either way, he’d obviously gone totally bonkers.

“Probably,” Spike replied, his lips twitching into a slight smile, “but hear me out. You’ve no control over your mum being sickly and all. That’d be bad enough on its own, but there’s the ritual too. It took away your control. You need to get it back. So…” he paused to take a deep, unnecessary breath, “let’s reenact the bloody thing, but this time, when I say stop, you actually do it.”

“So, I’m supposed to get back a feeling of control by you being in control of what we’re doing?” she asked dubiously. It sounded like it would be more helpful to him than to her. She knew she could be kind of a bitch at times, but did he really think she was that petty? That she wouldn’t try to help him through this unless he claimed it would help her just as much if not more?

“Still chipped, ain’t I?” he spat, starting to pace in a small circle in front of the door. “Can’t actually _make_ you stop.” He stopped – both words and motion – and just stood there breathing for a moment, seeming to take comfort from it. _He doesn’t want to do this,_ she realized. But he obviously felt like he had to. “You can do whatever you bloody well want to me, and all I’ve got is words. ‘S up to you if you listen or not, innit?”

She hadn’t exactly forgotten about the chip, but she hadn’t taken it into consideration when thinking about reenacting things. He really was giving her complete control. And trust, though he had no reason to. She’d raped him, gotten him pregnant, beaten him unconscious, and kept him chained to her bed. It had been because of the ritual, but it was still affecting her. For all he knew, she could decide he really did still need to be chained up. She’d felt a little bit of an urge towards that when he’d wanted to go on patrol with the others.

“It probably wouldn’t be a good idea for me to tackle you like I did then,” she said quietly.

He laughed at that, a small, startled sound without much humor to it. “Yeah, not really the best idea, that.”

She studied him for a moment, then scooted closer to the bed and patted her bedding in quiet invitation. He cautiously approached and sat down beside her. They hadn’t even done anything yet, and he was already shaking slightly. Also growling a little, like he was pissed at himself for his reaction. He probably was. He’d made it pretty clear that he hated the way he’d been reacting to her. It was one more thing he had no control over.

_We’ll get it back_ , Buffy thought firmly. They’d both get back what had been taken from them. Well, some of it anyway. Spike getting back full control would require a chipectomy, which _so_ wasn’t happening. And she’d never get back the innocence she’d had before she was chosen. She’d never be that carefree cheerleader again. Just like Spike would never again be whoever he was before he’d been turned, she realized. Even if Willow cursed him with his soul, there was too much death and mayhem in his past for him to ever be the same, unless he’d been a serial killer when he was alive.

She took a deep breath and focused on the here and now. “Okay, so, what are we doing here?” she asked. “We’re skipping the tackling part, so do I just…?” She trailed off uncertainly. He didn’t expect them to do the actual sex part, did he? Because that was… honestly, it was disturbingly arousing. Also sickening.

“Um, right, well….” He looked away from her as he spoke, like he couldn’t talk about what they were doing and look at her at the same time. “Uh, you pin me down and carry on like before…. Only without the attempt to punch some sense into you or the, uh, actual shaggin’. And when I say stop, you stop until I say you can start up again, yeah?”

“Um, yeah. Okay, let’s do this.”

She slowly reached out – ready to stop the instant he made any kind of protest – and gently pushed him down so he was lying on the floor. She straddled his thighs – shivering slightly as she tried to ignore how good he felt under her – and paused for a moment, unsure of what to do. During the actual ritual, she’d started undoing his belt. Since they were skipping the sex part, was she supposed to skip that part too?

Well, it wasn’t any more overtly sexual than any of the rest of what they were actually doing, so she reached down to unbuckle it. Was it just her imagination, or did it seem even tighter than usual? Was he already starting to –

“Stop.”

Buffy froze, even her thoughts stopping for a moment at his slightly panicky sounding command. She could feel him trembling. She waited there, unmoving, for nearly two minutes before the tremors started easing. Part of her was protesting this entire thing. She was the Slayer, and she was letting a vampire dictate her actions. _No!_ She was a human being, and Spike was a…. It didn’t matter what he was. She was going to follow his lead on this.

“Okay,” he said quietly, the word barely a breath of sound.

She skipped ahead to what she’d done after she’d gotten them both pantless. She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry as she ran her hands up his shirt towards his shoulders. During the ritual, he’d been inside of her at this point, cool and solid and…. She scooted forward, straddling his hips. His body was reacting to hers, pressing against her groin through his jeans and her pajama bottoms. She remembered the feel of him, of being filled by someone who wouldn’t break if she really let herself go.

He shuddered as she pressed down on his shoulders, holding him down. “Stop,” he whispered.

She did, letting up the pressure but keeping her hands lightly resting on him. The part of her that had been pissy at the thought of obeying his commands had quieted. It felt good and oddly freeing to do as he said. She had that option. She wasn’t being forced to do things to him against her will. Forced to….

It hit her suddenly. She’d been _forced_ to do what she had done. In a way, she’d been raped by the spell itself just as much as Spike had been raped by her. She hadn’t really looked at it that way before. She’d just considered herself weak.

He didn’t say anything this time, just nodded when he was ready. She slid her hands down his arms to grip his wrists, being more gentle with him than when she’d done it all for real. More gentle even than when she’d demonstrated to Riley just what she had done. She held him down, his arms up over his head as she unconsciously started moving against him, her hips rocking in imitation of that night.

He gasped softly, and she looked down at him, caught and rendered temporarily breathless by the look in his eyes. Fear and longing and… something she hadn’t expected to see even though she knew it had to have been there for the ritual to work. _Oh god,_ she thought, stunned. He loved her. He really did love her.

The flickering key from her dream, the one that fit the lock on her heart. If she could just reach inside and find her voice she could…. She shuddered and rolled off of him, curling up on her side facing the bed.

“Buffy?”

“I’m tired,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’m sorry… I… I’m just tired, okay?”

He was silent for a while, the only sound both of them breathing. He was matching her breaths, she realized. She didn’t know how she felt about that. Was she supposed to feel anything about that?

“Right,” he finally said, his voice shaky. “You, you just get some rest, yeah? I’ll, uh, go see what’s on the telly.”

He got up and quietly left the room, closing the door behind him. Buffy really was tired, but it was a long time before she was able to fall asleep.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue and scenes taken from the episode “Triangle”

Spike ran a hand through his sleep tousled hair, trying to ignore the queasy feeling caused by the blood warming in the microwave. For the past couple of days, the smell of the A positive blood mixed in with the rest had been off a bit. Not like it had gone bad or anything, but something about it – or him – had changed, and now it made him wish vampires could throw up.

He sighed and opened up the fridge, taking out the vitamin D whole milk and drinking some directly from the carton. Joyce had insisted he drink the stuff. Not that he was actually complaining, mind. It wasn’t as bad as the bloody pineapples, but he was actively craving the stuff, along with kippers.

Probably all of the vitamin D. He couldn’t exactly go out in the sun and soak up the most abundant source of the stuff after all. Did pineapples have vitamin D? He wasn’t sure, but it was a fruit, so no doubt full of all kinds of things that the sprog needed. Not even born yet, and his girl was already a needy little hell spawn, wasn’t she? Good on her. _Take to being a pampered princess like a fish to water, won’t she?_ he thought in fond amusement. He’d always sort of felt like it was a girl. Thinking about it, she kind of had to be, didn’t she, being half Slayer and all. His subconscious had apparently put that together before the rest of him. Had to be why that little girl kept showing up in his dreams. Dreams….

His thoughts took a darker and more contemplative turn as he looked down at his hands. After the dream he’d woken up from, he kept expecting them to be slashed to ribbons. Angelus throwing two dolls to the ground, the dark-haired one smashing to pieces while the blonde broke apart into several jagged parts. Spike had tried to put them back together, even though the scattered bits of porcelain kept slicing up his hands.

Didn’t take a genius to figure _that_ one out. He and good old gramps always had had the same taste in women. That blend of strength and vulnerability. Angelus liked to break them and Spike…. Well, he was the masochistic git who tried to put them back together again, wasn’t he?

He gulped down more of the milk – trying to distract himself from his thoughts – just as Buffy walked in, heading towards the basement with a basket full of dirty laundry. She wrinkled her nose in disgust at him.

“Ew, Spike! Why are you drinking it straight out of the carton?” she demanded.

“Okay, one, it’s _my_ bloody carton. You and the Bit like that skimmed crap. Two, I’d do the same even if you _did_ drink it. Vampire, remember? Evil.” He punctuated his statement by drinking more milk right from the carton. Had a bit of a sour aftertaste compared to what he’d had when he was human, but wasn’t really all that bad. It was nice not having to shake it or stir it up to mix the cream back in.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Oooh, I’m shaking in my stylish yet functional boots from the sheer menace.”

She was doing a good job of pretending everything was normal – or, well, as normal as it could be, given the circumstances – but she was very carefully not looking directly at him. She’d been like that ever since the reenactment they’d tried a few days ago. She tended to blush and stammer now if she looked directly at him. It was actually kind of cute, but he wasn’t going to tease her about it.

That had been…. It had helped. He hadn’t been completely sure it would, but it had. When she’d been herself and not under the control of some poorly designed ritual, she had listened to him. She’d stopped when he asked her to. When the memory of what had happened that night tried to intrude, he had another one to lay over the top of it. He had something now to cling to when the feeling of powerlessness tried to overtake him. He’d told her to stop, and she’d _stopped_.

If he poked fun at Buffy for how it made her feel, she’d never agree to try it again. She’d never…. He shivered, remembering the feel of her body on top of his as she…. _Held him down, mindless lust in her otherwise blank eyes_.... looked at him with confused desire and bloody well _stopped_ when he said and waited for his say-so before continuing on.

The microwave beeped, pulling him from his thoughts. He put the milk away and retrieved the warmed mug from the microwave. Ugh. It smelled horrible. A vile mix of delicious and whatever rank horribleness had infected the A positive blood. It was human blood, and there was nothing actually wrong with it. It couldn’t be as bad as the pig. He took a cautious sip… and immediately spat it out into the sink, gagging at the taste.

The laundry basket hit the floor, and Buffy was at his side, calling his name in a panic. He was too busy dry heaving and feeling absolutely wretched to respond.

 

**…**

 

Buffy peered into the living room, worry and something disturbingly like jealousy roiling through her in an uneasy combination. Spike was curled up around a heating pad on the couch, his head in Dawn’s lap while the girl petted his hair. After roughly twenty minutes of dry heaving, he kind of deserved to be petted and fussed over. And Buffy was absolutely _not_ jealous that her sister was the one doing the petting.

_It’s good Dawn got home from school when she did,_ she told herself firmly. Spike was doing a little bit better, but she didn’t think he was up to being all snuggly with her just yet. Hell, she didn’t think _she_ was ready for that just yet. Or ever. She was the Slayer. She did _not_ snuggle the evil undead, no matter what her slayer dreams seemed to be hinting at. She resolutely ignored the times she’d already snuggled with him in the past few weeks.

Focus. She needed to focus on the situation at hand. Willy didn’t have enough clean human blood in stock to supply what Spike needed without including the second most common blood type in America. She’d given him some of her blood, but he couldn’t live on that as his only source for however long this was going to last.

Okay, so, where was she supposed to get blood, other than stealing it from the hospital? She really didn’t want to have to do that, but she knew she would if it ended up being her only option. _Giles,_ she thought suddenly. Giles would know where to get blood, wouldn’t he? He was old, he knew all kinds of things.

Giles would know what to do, and everything would be okay. She’d swing by the Magic Box on the way to visit with her mom. Then, once the sun went down, she’d take Spike to the Bronze for one of those onion things he liked if he felt up to it. He didn’t like being cooped up in the house too much, but there was no she was taking him on patrol with her today. She’d invite Xander, too. They’d have a nice night out, and everything would be just fine.

 

**…**

 

“… so, can you help?”

Giles looked into Buffy’s anxious face and sighed, taking off his already pristine glasses and rubbing the lenses to near-deity levels of cleanliness. The majority of his adult life had been dedicated to the eradication of vampires, and now he was being asked to procure human blood for one. All this for the health and well-being of a child who could very well be a soulless abomination itself.

“Giles?”

He could hear it in her voice. Could see it in her eyes and in her interactions lately with the chipped vampire. It wasn’t just the ritual pushing at her anymore. She had come to genuinely care for the child. And, God help them all, for Spike. He should have been staked when they’d first found out about the ritual. Now, though…. He feared Spike meeting a well-deserved end would cause Buffy pain.

Giles squeezed his eyes shut and struggled to push back the memory of Jenny. Another vampire. His slayer was falling for another vampire. He could feel the familiar cold rage of his buried Ripper self rising, nearly choking him as it warred with feelings of pity and compassionate understanding for the girl. He wanted to shake her, to slap some sense into her. He wanted to hold her close and tell her that everything would be alright.

Spike wasn’t Angelus – Giles would give him that, at least – but what he wasn’t didn’t change what he was. A soulless killer held back only by a piece of government technology they really knew very little about. What if the woman in red had offered its removal instead of torturing Spike? He had no doubt the vampire would have sold Dawn out in that instance, just as he had turned on them when Adam had offered the same.

Ultimately, though, this was about Buffy and her child. Spike had very little to do with it, as far as Giles was concerned. They didn’t yet know if the child had a soul or not. If it did, he would do his best to help Buffy care for it. If it did not…. He would make sure that his girl was not the one who ended its life.

He sighed and put his glasses back on. “I’ll do what I can to find a blood supply. Human blood is legally obtainable from several places for research purposes. Unfortunately, it’s prohibitively expensive in the quantities Spike would require.”

“I know where you can get some,” Anya said from behind the counter, sounding bored. “There’s a woman in L.A. who I did a really nice piece of vengeance for. She sells all kinds of things, including fresh, morally obtained human blood.”

Giles opened his mouth to ask some questions, but then the bell over the door rang as a customer came in. The three of them waited in silence for the woman to pick out and pay for a crystal ball. Once she was gone, Anya focused on them.

“You should be able to pick up a couple of days’ worth of blood and set up a delivery schedule for non A positive blood. I’ll write an introduction letter. Give it to her, and Magda will give you a good discount.”

He frowned at the former demon. “Wouldn’t it be, uh, simpler for, for you to go yourself?”

“Oh, absolutely not,” Anya said with a slight shudder. “I know a lot of demons in Los Angeles. I couldn’t stand for them to see me like this.”

“I see.” Giles sighed and rubbed his temples. Of course he’d have to go to Los Angeles. The City of Angels. The city of Angel. “Write the letter, and I’ll leave at once. Call Willow if you require any assistance in the shop.”

“Thank you, Giles,” Buffy said with a slightly wobbly smile. She hugged him. “Thank you, Anya.” She hugged the ex-demon.

Giles watched her leave, then sighed again and pulled his scotch and a glass out of their hiding places. He wasn’t going to get drunk – not when he had to drive to L.A. soon – but he found himself in dire need of some liquid fortification.

 

**…**

 

Willow wrinkled her nose in distaste as she watched Xander kiss Anya. What did he see in her? She was so rude and crude, blurting out inappropriate things at the worst possible moments. She didn’t even seem to be _trying_ to act like a normal human being. She just let whatever she thought come right out of her mouth without caring about anyone around her.

And she was an ex-vengeance demon. What would she do to Xander when he messed up enough to really make her mad? It was going to happen. Xander was her best friend, but that didn’t mean Willow glossed over his flaws. He really could be a big ol’ bumbling goof. It was kind of endearing, but maybe not the best trait to have when dating someone like Anya.

Willow sighed in frustration over her friend’s messed up love life and continued rummaging along the shelves for the ingredients she’d need. Buffy had been pretty distant lately, all distracted by things with Spike and the key, and now her mom being in the hospital. It made sense that she just didn’t have much time for her friends right now.

She’d just do this little spell for Buffy – making a ball of sunshine to dust a bunch of vamps all at once – and she’d have more time for her friends. Things would start going back to normal in no time.

 

**…**

 

“I love both them, I really do,” Xander said as he lined up his shot. “I just wish they wouldn’t try to drag me into the middle of things. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Anya is my girlfriend and Willow is my bestie.”

_I’m playing pool with a vampire, and enjoying it more than my last interaction with said girlfriend and bestie,_ Xander thought. That was just messed up. Of course, the whole thing was messed up. Anya and Willow each wanting him to take their side against the other.

“Chuck ‘em both in a vat of oil and let ‘em wrestle it out,” Spike advised.

The image popped into Xander’s head, complete with Tara holding one of those number cards to indicate the round. _Mmmm, the Xan-man likie,_ he thought, allowing himself to dwell on it for a brief moment before shaking it away.

“Who’s wrestling in a what now?” Buffy asked, setting a fresh glass of cherry coke on the edge of the pool table next to Spike.

“Red and his bird want to play tug-o’-war with Harris as the rope,” Spike said, plucking the maraschino cherry out of his glass and sticking it – stem and all – into his mouth.

Xander had kind of wanted to keep that a secret from Buffy. She had enough to worry about right now. Of course, he hadn’t actually told Spike to keep quiet about it, so he couldn’t even really blame the peroxided pest, much as he’d like to.

Buffy sighed tiredly. “Don’t worry, Xander, Willow will come around.”

Huh. That was weird. He had honestly expected Buffy to take Willow’s side if she took any side at all. He wondered if it had anything to do with the look on Will’s face when he’d said he had to go meet up with Buffy and Spike for a night out at the Bronze. He’d thought maybe she just didn’t want to hang out with Spike, or was dedicated to keeping an eye on the shop while Giles was away. Now he wondered if maybe she hadn’t even been invited.

“Is everything okay with you and Willow?” he asked.

“O-oh, um, yeah, yeah, everything’s fine,” Buffy said unconvincingly. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. Her cheeks suddenly turned pink, and he followed her gaze to the neatly knotted cherry stem now sitting next to Spike’s drink. “I… just need to go call Janice’s house and make sure Dawn is okay.” She hurried off towards the payphones.

Okay, this was apparently The Night of the Living Weird. Anya and Willow fighting, pouring out his relationship woes to Spike, whatever was wrong between Buffy and Willow, and now Buffy getting all flustered because Spike could apparently knot cherry stems with his tongue.

Xander shuddered. He didn’t want to think about what Spike could do with his tongue. He _really_ didn’t want to think about _Buffy_ thinking about what Spike could do with his tongue.

“What you need to do is talk to ‘em,” Spike said, apparently oblivious to the wrong, horrible turn Xander’s thoughts had taken. “Tell ‘em you love ‘em both, and if they give a crap about you, they won’t try to pull you in.”

“That’s… actually a good idea.” He admitted reluctantly. “Thanks…. I still hate you though,” he added.

“It’s mutual,” the vampire assured him with a slight smile. “Though my hate is more genuine. You only hate me because I’m a vampire. I’ve no doubt, though, that as we grow closer, you’ll come to loathe me for who I really am deep down inside.”

Before Xander could come up with a witty retort, something big and ugly burst into the club, demanding ale and babies.

 

**…**

 

Buffy leaned on the troll’s hammer, exhausted and staring at the mess of the Magic Box in dismay. Giles was doing her a favor, and she had let his shop get damaged. Though, to be fair, a lot of it had happened when Willow had unleashed the troll.

She glared at her friend. “What was this all about, Will? Why were you messing with things without Giles here?”

“I, I was just trying to _help_ ,” the redhead stammered, looking like a kicked puppy. “It would have been fine, but Anya kept interrupting me, and –”

“God, do you _ever_ take responsibility for your actions?” Buffy exploded, immediately feeling bad about it. She was a terrible friend. Willow had only tried to help. Even when she’d been going along with Buffy’s ritual-influenced actions towards Spike, Willow had thought she was doing the right thing.

“Buffy –”

She held up her hand at Willow’s hurt protest, the whiny tone reigniting her anger. “I really don’t want to hear it right now. You _always_ do this! You, you just _decide_ what’s right, and you do it. If you even bother to talk to anyone else about it, you go on with it anyway if someone tries to talk you out of it. You need to learn to just shut up and listen to other people sometimes!”

“I…. How could you say that?” Willow demanded. Buffy was vaguely aware of Anya backing away and starting to clean up the store. Smart woman. “I’m, I’m your _friend_ not your stupid sidekick! And, and yeah, if I think I’m right, I’m going to do something! So what if I make mistakes? Everyone makes mistakes, even you!”

“Yeah, and when _I_ mess up, I try to learn from it! I have to deal with the consequences. _I_ don’t get to just bake cookies! I have to deal with lost souls and, and the people I care about losing their loved ones! That’s part of life. Dealing with the consequences. Instead of trying to pass the blame, maybe you should just grow the hell up!”

“Grow up?”  Willow glared, her expression a mix of anger and hurt. Buffy wanted to smack her. To tell her to just accept that she was in the wrong. “That’s rich coming from someone who’s too busy playing house with her vampire sex slave to spend time with her friends or patrol. And, and how often have you been to visit your mom, anyway?” Willow spat. “After all we’ve… _I’ve_ done for you, and you, you just blow me off to hang out with Xander and Spike! The demon magnet and his new blood-sucking demon pal. I wouldn’t be surprised if you and Spike were getting all kissy face again, and this time you can’t even pretend it’s all my fault! I just said you guys should get married. It’s your sick vampire fetish that led to all the rest.”

Buffy flinched, the hateful venom spewing from her friend hitting the mark. Then she remembered her Slayer dream. She didn’t have to take this. She had a right to her voice, damn it. Her eyes narrowed. “You know what? What I do with my mouth isn’t any of your goddamn business. You’re right, you aren’t my sidekick; and I’m not your damn Power Girl action figure to pose any way you want!”

The two women just stared at each other for a moment, guilt and a horrible satisfaction swirling around inside of Buffy. That had felt good. She hadn’t wanted to look at it, but that anger had been building inside of her for a while. It had gotten so much worse – morphing from a seed to a big freaking oak tree – when Willow had “done the right thing” by backing Buffy’s treatment of Spike.

Spike. Thank God he wasn’t here during all of this. He’d been willing to stay behind with Xander and help with the injured people while she went after the troll. He’d been hurt during the partial collapse of the Bronze. Not badly – for a vampire anyway – but still, she would have been worrying about him if he’d been here for the fight. Instead, he’d stayed behind to help tend to the wounded…. The blood-covered wounded.

Oh god, what had she done? She paled, horrified. She’d left a hungry, injured vampire with an all-you-can-lick traumatized victim buffet. She turned and ran, ignoring Anya and Willow as they called after her.


	19. Chapter 19

Hunger was a snarling, gnawing thing, like a trapped fox having a go at its own leg, but, so far, Spike had refrained from snacking on any of the injured humans. Mostly it was because of his own self-control – admittedly something he didn’t use very often, though it was like steel when he did choose to exercise it – and the fact that Buffy had trusted him enough to leave him with the victims. The fact that a lot of the blood scent in the air was A positive did help a bit. Sodding any-and-every-bloody-time-of-the-day sickness. Whoever had named it morning sickness should have been slowly tortured for it. Possibly while being forced to listen to Angelus sing.

Harris had been dealing with the bleeding people for the most part while Spike shifted debris about and handled anyone with blunt force injuries. They’d decided on that particular division of labor after getting too up close and personal with someone had led to Spike gagging at the stench of their blood. So here he was, left with all the heavy lifting.

He sighed in annoyance and swiped at the blood that kept dripping into his right eye. Sodding head wounds. The things bled like mad, even for vampires. _At least my own still smells and tastes good,_ he thought, absently licking his hand clean. Not that it would actually do him any good.

 _Right then, ‘nough lollygagging about. Slayer’s trusting you to do this all proper, mate._ He moved a table out of the way, revealing the owner of the heartbeat he’d been tracking. The girl was either late teens or early twenties with long dark hair and big dark eyes. She was also covered with blood from over a dozen small cuts. This far from where they’d been stashing the wounded, the mouthwatering scent of O negative easily overpowered everything else.

He knelt down beside her, looking at all the little cuts. He could almost taste her, feel the liquid heat on his tongue. Coppery and sweet, with the mingled flavors of life and death and the very essence of the individual human, something you could only get when you drained the prey yourself. He bit back a moan at the thought, his upper canines itching maddeningly as he fought to keep from vamping out.

It would be so bloody _easy_. Just lick her clean, let the anti-coagulant in his saliva keep the blood flowing. He could tuck in with her in a dark corner, under some of the rubble. Hold her warm body close as he slowly drank down her life, pausing now again to lick away her tears. And in those last few moments, he’d look into her eyes and watch as the fear faded into peace and then nothingness.

Buffy would never even know. He’d add more wounds after the girl died, tell the Slayer that she’d bled out and all he had done was clean up the mess. Except… she’d still be upset about it, wouldn’t she? That didn’t make a lick of sense to him, but he could see it, Buffy being horrified at a human – even a dead one – being nothing more than food.

Right, he could do this. He’d just call Harris over and…. God, she smelled positively ambrosial, didn’t she? No. He had control of himself. He wasn’t going to eat her. She was a person. She had friends and family who would be hurt if she died. They would mourn. He shouldn't be the cause of that. He.... really didn't bloody _care_ , honestly. She was a sodding happy meal on legs. So what if the other happy meals got sad? If not for the chip, he'd just hunt them down and eat them, too. They could frolic about together in happy meal heaven. 

Why the bloody hell had he even been _trying_ to make himself care? What had the Slayer _done_ to him? It was like she’d gotten her goody-goody peanut butter all up in his chocolate of evil. This wasn’t him. Was this something to do with the bloody ritual? Sodding pregnancy hormones messing about with him or somesuch?

He was a killer, damn it. A bloody apex predator. Yeah, sometimes predators adopted things that should have been prey, but this? The girl was _nothing_ to him, other than a tasty meal. The Slayer knew what he was. Had known when she’d run off after the troll. She’d only herself to blame if he ate someone.

Oh bloody hell, that was it, wasn’t it? She’d blame herself. And… she wouldn’t trust him anymore. She’d keep him away from the Bit and from Joyce. Rules or not, she’d disinvite him from the house to keep him away from the sprog. And the confused longing in her eyes that she kept trying to hide would be replaced with genuine loathing and distrust. And a good part of that loathing would be for herself.

He didn’t want to do that to her. The very thought of it…. It _hurt_. Just thinking about her being in that kind of emotional pain. It had been that way with Dru, and look what she had done to him. And that was with her being a vampire. Someone who at least had the same urges and needs as he did. But the bloody _Slayer_ …. He loved her. He’d accepted that. He wasn’t exactly clear on _why_ he loved her or how it had happened, but he’d accepted it. You did things you didn’t understand for someone you loved. God knew he’d done it all the bloody time for Dru.

Looked like he’d be doing it for Buffy, too. Love’s bitch before he was anything else, and still bloody man enough to admit it, sprog stuffed up inside him or not. He sighed and focused on the girl again. She looked dazed and a little shocky. Not surprising.

“Come on, then, let’s get you up.”

He carefully got her to her feet and led her to the other humans, getting her settled down and comfortable. This did _not_ make him a bloody white hat. Maybe a medium gray, but that was all. Only white thing that belonged anywhere near his head was his sodding hair.

“Spike, get away from her.”

He looked up, startled at the sound of Buffy’s voice. He’d been so involved in his own thoughts that he hadn’t noticed the Slayer coming back. Her voice had been very carefully non-accusatory and her expression was unreadable. Despite his own thoughts when he’d found the woman he was tending to, he bristled at the implication and felt an odd stab of pain at the apparent loss of trust. It had been stupid of her, but it had still meant something to him, damn it.

“Haven’t been snackin’ on the nummy little treats,” he snapped defensively. “Only blood on me right now is my own.”

“I can see that,” she said quietly, her expression gentling slightly. “I think you maybe need to put the fangs away, though. You’re scaring her.”

Put the…. “Oh, bloody hell,” he muttered.

He didn’t know about other vampires – he’d never exactly sat around just chatting about the whole being a vampire thing with anyone – but both faces felt normal and natural to him. He couldn’t always tell when he’d slipped from one to the other, especially when he was stressed or hungry. Both of those together, well…. He took a deep breath and deliberately flipped the little mental switch back to human.

“The troll left a big mess to and from here,” she said. “The paramedics should be here soon. Let’s head on home.”

He stood up, but didn’t head towards her. She was talking to him like he was some kind of wild beast or crazy person. “I _can_ control myself, you know. Not an animal.”

“I know that,” she said. She oddly calm, and the way she was holding herself, as if she could shatter at any minute…. He tilted his head, eyes narrowing as he studied her. Had something happened to one of her little friends?

Harris was still puttering about looking for injured people and the watcher was likely still out of town. “One of the witches or Anya get hurt?”

She flinched and looked almost like she wanted to cry but wouldn’t allow herself to. “No. No one… no one got hurt.”

She was lying, but not. He could see it in her body language, smell it in her scent. No one hurt physically then. Someone had been hurt emotionally, though, and he was betting it was Buffy herself. He wondered who had done it, and how that Egyptian pulling the brain out the nose thing worked on a live person. Not that he could actually follow through on the idea, but it was a nice thought.

“Let’s just…. Let’s go home, okay? All this,” she gestured vaguely at the ruined club as a whole, “has to be pretty stressful. I shouldn’t have…. I just… I need to get you home.”

Her calm had broken, replaced by a shaky desperation. She needed to get home, get somewhere safe to process whatever it was that was eating at her. He nodded slowly and approached her.

“Right then. Let’s head home.”

Home. It hit him suddenly. His crypt didn’t come to mind anymore at the thought of home. It was the Summers house. It was early morning talks with Joyce, telling stories to the Nibblet, bantering with Buffy while they sat on the sofa and watched the telly.

They walked out of the Bronze together, side by side, and headed for home.

 

**…**

 

Water flashed down from the faucet to swirl down the drain. Circling and circling before going down forever. Like any hope for a normal life. Like her friendship with Willow. Her friend’s words circled through her mind like that water, but there was no drain in there, nowhere for them to go.

 _Too busy playing house with your vampire sex slave to spend time with your friends or patrol… how often have you visited your mom... after all I’ve done for you…._ Bad friend, bad slayer, bad daughter. She _tried_ , damn it! She tried so hard to be good at all of those things.

She made time for her friends, even when she was exhausted and overwhelmed. She went out almost every night on patrol. Willow used to support her need for the occasional night off. As for her mom…. Buffy had visited her every single day, so far. She’d even missed a lot of her classes to do it, something Willow should have _known_ considering they had some of the same classes.

 _She just tore into me, like she has any idea what I’ve been going through lately,_ Buffy thought, anger starting to rise. She was a nineteen-year-old college student who fought monsters all the damn time, had lost her boyfriend because she was apparently more manly than he was, had a manufactured sister who was apparently some kind of key, and a mom with a brain tumor.

Then there was the shining cherry of utter life change on the crap sundae that was her existence. She was going to be a mother due to a bout of unwanted sex where she hadn’t even been in control of her own body. Her own mother was going to be okay – she had to be. The doctors said she had a good chance, so she _had_ to get better, right? – but becoming a mom herself? That changed everything; almost like becoming the Chosen One all over again.

Did Willow care about any of that? No, she just wanted to be petted and loved and told how wonderful she was. And Buffy hadn’t exactly been singing her praises lately. She hadn’t even yelled at Willow until the explosion earlier, and that hadn’t left the redhead with the opportunity to look cutely dismayed before baking cookies, as if that would make everything all better.

Buffy’s fists clenched, reminding her of the washcloth she was holding and the reason for the faucet being on in the first place. She took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself down and put the washcloth under the warm water. Thinking about Willow could wait. Right now, she had to take care of her vamp- _Spike_. She had to take care of Spike. He wasn’t her vampire. He wasn’t her anything. He was….

She took a shaky breath before turning off the water and ringing out the washcloth. Then she left the bathroom and went into her room, trying to keep her mind blank. Spike was sitting on the edge of the bed in nothing but jeans, inspecting the large bruise along his ribs.

A small part of her blank mind filled with disturbing thoughts of running her hands along all that pale, smooth skin. The rest of it was full of the image of him kneeling beside that woman in the Bronze, helping her instead of taking advantage of the fact that she was already bleeding. The bruise and the nasty gash above his eye that had finally closed during the walk home were proof that he hadn’t fed from her or anyone else. Not even any of the dead.

Dead. Oh god, people had _died_ in the troll attack. She didn’t think there had been many, but she’d seen at least one victim with a broken neck and empty eyes. Even one person was one too many. It was a person who had had their whole life ahead of them and family and friends. Now that person was gone, all because Willow kept insisting on messing with something she didn’t seem to really understand.

She sat down heavily beside Spike – numb from the night’s revelations – and dabbed at the dried blood on his face with the washcloth. Her best friend, a human with a soul, had unleashed a monster that had maimed and killed people. The soulless demon beside her had helped those same people, even though it had to have gone every instinct he had.

“Why?” she asked quietly. “Why didn’t you eat that woman?” Had it been as simple as her blood type? Buffy wasn’t sure if she wanted that to be the case or not. If it was, then his actions were essentially meaningless. But if she hadn’t been A positive, that meant….

He looked away from her and shrugged uncomfortably. “Thought about it,” he admitted. “Tasty stuff, O neg. Universal donor and what-all.”

“Why didn’t you?” she demanded. She fought the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake the answer out of him.

Spike did some dumb things sometimes, but he wasn’t stupid. He had to know she wouldn’t have staked him for feeding on the victims. She _couldn’t_ stake him right now. The ritual wouldn’t allow it. Besides, she wouldn’t really have blamed him for it. It would have been her own fault for leaving a hungry and stressed-out vampire more or less alone with temptation.

“What’s it matter?” he asked, standing up and starting to pace. “I just _didn’t_. Let it alone.”

“I can’t. I need to know why.”

She got up and stalked towards him, the need to know – to understand what the hell was going on in at least part of her life – nearly overwhelming. Why had a soulless demon done the right thing when it didn’t benefit him? Yeah, he had helped her save the world before, but that had been for Dru. And, well, for the world, but only because he happened to like it the way it was.

“Tell me why,” she insisted, backing him into the corner. When she realized what she’d done, she backed away enough so he didn’t feel trapped, but stayed close enough to make it clear she _was_ going to get an answer.

“I don’t _know_ , okay?” he finally shouted, running a hand through his hair in obvious frustration. “You’ve gone and bloody well turned me into some kind of sodding peanut butter cup of moral ambiguity.”

She blinked and stepped back uncertainly. “I did what now?”

He waved away the strange comment and left the corner, pacing again. Finally, he sighed and tried to explain. “It was bloody daft of you, but you trusted me. And that….” He shook his head and trailed off. “You…. I knew. I knew you’d blame yourself if I did anything. So, I just... _didn’t_. I didn’t so you wouldn’t.”

He looked right into her eyes as he said it. They were blue, but they were still the eyes of a demon. She’d always known that. She’d never really let herself acknowledge the person that was in there, too. “Even though I’m hungry enough that even soddin’ _Harris_ sounds edible,” he added grumpily.

Buffy stared at him in stunned disbelief. He’d done the right thing… because he didn’t want her to blame herself? She’d thought maybe he hadn’t wanted her to hate him, but this…. The flickering key from the dream suddenly came to mind. Going from black to white and all the shades of gray in between. Spike couldn’t be the key to her heart. He _couldn’t_ ….

He was hungry, and Giles probably wouldn’t be back until morning. She could do something about that. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t process. But she could bleed. She went to her weapons chest and pulled out a knife before sitting on the bed again.

“Come over here,” she said quietly, patting the mattress. “Please.”

He watched her in silence for a moment, then slowly approached the bed and sat beside her. His eyes flicked down to her wrist, then widened slightly in surprise when she sliced the blade across the side of her neck instead. It was deeper and longer than the other time she’d done this, but it wasn’t dangerous. Not for her anyway.

“You sure about this?” he asked.

This wasn’t the first time she’d fed him her blood directly from her body, but this time was different. He wasn’t in immediate danger and he wasn’t hurt that badly. He was just hungry, which could have been fixed by her bleeding into a cup.

At her nod, he leaned towards her, gently putting his hands on her shoulders before pressing his mouth against her neck. His tongue gently probed the wound, and Buffy gasped, a tingle of pleasure shivering through her. Another image from the dream flashed through her mind. Spike taking their child and leaving.

She instinctively wrapped her arms around him, using all of her strength as if to keep him with her. He made a noise, and she immediately loosened her grip before realizing it hadn’t been a pain sound. He shuddered and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “tighter.”

“Oh god,” he moaned as she used her full strength again.

Definitely not a pain sound. He sucked and lapped at her neck, drawing her blood into himself. It was.... It had never been quite like this before, almost an exchange, pleasure for sustenance. His tongue laved across the cut again, and the sensations increased.

She whimpered with loss as he pulled his mouth away, but then he was kissing his way up her throat, along her jaw. His lips were suddenly against hers, and she opened herself to him, tasting her own blood, cherry soda, and the spicy sauce the Bronze used for their onion flowers. Beneath that, a unique flavor that was just Spike.

He kissed her like it was something he needed to stay alive, like he would dust if his lips weren’t on hers, if his tongue wasn’t mapping out the contours of her mouth. He pulled away a fraction, turning the kiss into several shorter ones, gasping desperately as he struggled for air he didn’t need. The sound of it, the feel of him, it was almost intoxicating. Buffy needed more. She needed…. She pushed him away from her, then down against the mattress. His hands slid under her shirt, caressing her skin as he pulled her closer, capturing her mouth again. She broke away, panting for breath. She felt like she was on teetering on the edge of something, about to either plunge to her doom or learn how to fly.

“Tell me to stop,” she whispered desperately. “Make me,” she kissed him again, “make me stop.”

Spike fastened his mouth on her neck, and Buffy was lost. She plunged over the edge, falling, falling, falling.... And then she soared.


	20. Chapter 20

_Afterglow held her in a warm cocoon, gently carrying her down towards sleep, but panic hovered around the edges._ Oh god, what have you done? _it howled in her mind. It pushed at her, the softened taffy of her fully satisfied body beginning to tense._

_Feather light touches skimmed up her arm and cool breath whispered against her ear. “Not tonight,” he murmured as strong arms wrapped around her and held her close. She felt strangely safe, like she had support to help her through whatever life was going to throw at her. “In the morning, we can both have a bit of a panic. Just let tonight be what it is…. Please.”_

Buffy stared blankly at Spike’s still sleeping form as the memory drifted through her mind. In the middle of the night, she hadn’t been able to refuse that soft plea. It was morning now, though, and the panic had risen with the sun.

_What have I done?_ She’d slept with a vampire. The specter of Angelus rose before her. All of the things he’d done to her friends and family. The death of Willow’s fish and Dawn’s hamster, the horrible sketch of Dawn splattered with blood, and – worst of all by far – Jenny Calendar’s murder. Giles would be so disappointed in her.

_What have I done?_ She’d slept with Spike, and this time, there wasn’t even a ritual to blame it on. He wasn’t Angel. He wouldn’t hurt her family. But he was still a vampire. Xander would be disgusted with her. Willow would…. She didn’t really care about Willow’s opinion right now.

_What have I done?_ She’d had sex with the guy she’d raped just over a month ago. _Oh god, oh god, oh god._ Had he even wanted it? He hadn’t told her to stop. She’d begged him to tell her, but he hadn’t asked her to stop. It had been even better than the night of the ritual. Spike had been an active participant this time. _Very_ active. His mouth… his hands.... Oh yeah, he’d been into it.

But how was he going to feel about it when he woke up? He’d said they could _both_ panic in the morning. He wouldn’t have said that if he hadn’t felt it creeping up on him, too. She should have stopped herself. Oh god, what had she done? She needed to… needed to…. Ben. She needed to talk to Ben.

Buffy scrambled out of the bed, being careful not to wake Spike, and quickly pulled on her clothes. Then she fled downstairs to call Ben.

 

**…**

 

Spike knew even before he fully woke that Buffy was gone. Her scent wasn’t as intense, and the bed felt empty and cold. He wished the amulet he had gotten from the witches actually made him produce body heat instead of just generating enough for the sprog to feed on without turning him into a vampsicle. It could have mingled with hers, keeping it there with him longer.

_Don’t know that I really want her lingering about quite that much,_ he thought. He was both relieved and disappointed that she was gone. He snorted in disgust at himself for the latter. Even if she wasn’t off berating herself for sleeping with a vampire, girl had a sodding life, didn’t she? _Mum’s in hospital, little sis is a mystical key of some sort, and she still has slaying and uni._ With all that to deal with, what kind of wanker would honestly expect her to wait about all day to hold his hand through a possible emotional crisis?

Not that he was having one, mind. He was just… unsettled a bit. He wasn’t certain last night had been the best idea. He laughed mockingly at himself. _Not the best idea, eh, mate? Makes it all sound planned out or somesuch._ It had just sort of… happened. Like the ritual. Stupid bloody ritual. Last night had been amazing, and he was stuck wondering if it had been a “good idea.” He was sick of all this flinching nonsense, and last night might have made it worse. He hoped to hell it hadn’t. He wanted more nights like that, not more reacting like a frightened little mouse.

_Ugh_. He wanted to just pull the blanket over his head and go back to sleep, but he was wide awake and hungry, both for blood and human food. He also desperately wanted a smoke to help settle himself and a bottle or two of Jack to smooth out all the edges. He sat up and glared down at his midsection.

“You better appreciate all this, Thursday. You’ve no idea how much I’d really love to be drunk right now,” he muttered, getting to his feet.

He grabbed a pair of jeans and pulled them on. Bloody hell. Sodding things were starting to get harder to button. He managed it though, along with a t-shirt. Why the sodding hell did he wear such tight clothes, anyway? Oh, right, it was because he was hot and liked to show it off.

He suddenly imaged himself in a muumuu and shuddered. Bugger _that_. When the time came to get new clothes, he was getting in touch with his inner Scottish barbarian. Kilts could be worn even lower than jeans without bunching oddly. Add a baggy sweater to the mix, and he’d just look mildly eccentric. He was okay with that. Just added to the mystique.

That decided on, he opened the door, pausing at the sight of a yellow sticky note. _Giles stopped by. There’s people juice in the fridge._ It wasn’t signed, but only Dawn would call human blood “people juice.” Odd little duck, wasn’t she? It was part of why he was fond of her.

He went downstairs, managing to keep his mind relatively blank until he got a mug of blood going in the microwave. Then his thoughts drifted back to the night before. God, that had been…. He squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out distractions as he tried to sort it all out.

Everything was jumbled about in his head. Last night, the reenactment they’d done, the ritual. All the times since he’d been chipped when he’d been cornered by humans – Sunnydale seemed to attract just as many uncommonly large and stupid frat boys as it did demons – and only gotten away through sheer luck and attitude. The fear and confusion of the first time he’d tried to feed after escaping the Initiative. It all boiled down to helplessness.

_And_ that _nasty little feeling’s gotten all tangled about with the girl meant to kill my kind._ He’d killed two slayers, and he’d come bloody close to his third on several occasions. They made him feel strong and alive, like he could take on the world and come out on top. Or they had, anyway. He’d tried not to let on, but ever since the chip, the thought of Buffy had made him feel vulnerable. It was part of why he’d finally gone to her for help, as a two fingered salute to his newfound fears and insecurities.

The microwave dinged, and he took out the mug of blood, savoring the scent for a moment before drinking it. O positive. Just like Buffy’s, but without the extra slayer kick to it. He’d been getting a couple ounces of her blood every day for a few weeks now, but that had been different, mixed in with other blood. Even the times she’d opened up a vein for him before this had been different. He’d been too far gone or in too much pain to really just enjoy it.

Last night, though…. God, that had been fantastic. The scent and taste of her, the warmth of her skin. The feel of her arms wrapped tightly around him, riding that edge of pain and pleasure in a way that had nearly driven him wild with desire. Slayer was one hell of a woman, no doubt about that.

He didn’t know if it had lasted the morning – _a delicate mist in tatters torn, stripped away by the light of morn. Ugh. Yes, let’s slather everything with horrible poetry. That’ll help_ – but she’d felt _something_ last night. The stress she’d been under, the attraction she’d been trying to hide, whatever had left her emotionally wounded… it had all combined with the fact that he had done something good for her sake. Add in something as erotic as taking blood could be, and it had been the perfect storm for what had happened. For at least a moment, it had felt like she had really seen him and not just a vampire. Or at least not what Angel had declared all vampires to be.

He could be what she needed. More importantly, he _wanted_ to be what she needed. What did she need? Someone who always had her back. Someone who put her first and didn’t try to dictate who she should be. _Needs someone who will help her be herself,_ he realized. Help her be herself… huh. She _wasn’t_ herself right now, not with the ritual still compelling some of her actions. It didn’t seem to be aiming the violence at him at the moment, but if she didn’t get it under control, she was going to end up maiming or killing someone.

He let himself imagine that for a moment, the Slayer in all her glory, ripping some idiot human’s head off with her bare hands for causing him too much stress, and shoving the body towards him so he could lap up the blood before too much of it went to waste…. And then throwing up in horror over what she’d done and hating the both of them with everything that she was. He sighed in wistful regret and let that particular fantasy go.

Slayer was a white hat and didn’t want to hurt anyone. She’d liked the active meditation trick he’d helped her with. Maybe he could run her through it a bit every day? Help her get to a trace state and work on controlling the instincts? He liked that idea. It would help her and give him something to do other than sitting around on his arse all day watching soap operas and teen dramas.

Right then, that’s what he’d do. He’d put on his gray hat and support her, teach her what she needed to be in control of her own life, and just generally make himself what she needed him to be. For now, though… well, the telly wasn’t going to watch itself, now was it?

 

**…**

 

Buffy fiddled nervously with her coffee cup as she watched the door of the Espresso Pump, waiting for Ben to arrive. She’d called him the instant she’d gotten downstairs, waking him from an exhausted sleep, and he’d agreed to meet with her after he got some more rest. Guilt stabbed at her. She hadn’t even been thinking about all of the victims of the troll attack and the toll it would have taken on the hospital workers.

_I’m awful_ , she thought. _I’m a terrible friend, and a bad slayer. Selfish, stupid Buffy._ Maybe she should just leave, go find a rock to crawl under where she couldn’t hurt anyone. _Where I won’t hurt anymore._

She’d almost convinced herself to leave when Ben walked in. He gave her a wave of acknowledgement before getting in line for coffee. She couldn’t leave now. He’d think it was something wrong with him, and not a problem with her. Why hadn’t she just run off to become a nun? That seemed like it would have been so much easier. She’d always thought she’d look good in a wimple.

After a few minutes, Ben sat down across from her with his own coffee and smiled tiredly. He hadn’t gotten enough sleep. She really was awful. She had already been scheduled to talk to him tomorrow. Why couldn’t she have just locked the freak out away and waited?

“What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding like he really wanted to know.

Buffy looked down at her cup and fiddled with it some more before taking a sip. What was wrong…. What _wasn’t_ wrong? “I just…. Some stuff happened last night. I was at the Bronze when everything went down. And then, then I….” She fought back tears of anger and sadness as she remembered the fight with Willow. “There was a pretty nasty argument with my best friend. And I, um, I….” Her voice lowered to the point where she was basically whispering. “I had sex with Spike.”

As soon as the words slipped out, she wanted to take them back. Hide them away in the vault of shame buried in her psyche. She tensed, waiting for Ben to tell her how disgusting and wrong she was for sleeping with a vampire. How she was putting all of her friends in danger and disgracing her calling.

“Oh, boy,” Ben murmured, not really sounding all that judgmental. “Not sure if you two were really ready for that. Though if it was a good enough experience, it may do more help than harm in the long run. Reenactment is a powerful therapy tool, and will help you two associated each other with positive things.”

“We, uh, we actually did some reenactment a few days ago, before….” She waved her hand vaguely, dazed and bewildered by his words. “Aren’t you…. Don’t you think it’s wrong? That, that I slept with him?”

“Because of what happened during the ritual?”

“What? No!” She frowned. “Well, yeah, that, too, but, but… he’s a _vampire_.”

Ben studied her for a moment and took a sip of his coffee before answering with a one word question. “So?”

Her jaw dropped. “So? What do you mean, _so_? He’s, he’s a _vampire_!” She got a couple of odd looks from some of the other people in the store and dropped her voice. “You know, evil bloodsucking demon that I am supposed to be the slayer of?”

“Buffy, why exactly did you have sex with him?” He still didn’t sound judgmental, which left her feeling weird and unbalanced. She was wrong. Dirty and wrong. Couldn’t he see that?

“I, I don’t know. It was just…. I was upset, and he had done something really good because he knew it would hurt me if he didn’t, and he needed blood. It all just… sort of happened.”

Ben nodded slowly, but didn’t say anything right away. When he finally did speak, it still wasn’t the accusations she’d been expecting. “Vampires eat people. That’s why you have to kill them. Spike _can’t_ eat people, which is why you haven’t killed him. And you said he did something good for your sake? Sounds to me like there’s some potential here, but you need to answer one question first, before you do anything else.” He looked her right in the eyes, expression serious. “How do you feel about Spike? Ignoring the whole being a vampire part.”

She almost said she hated him, but she stopped herself. Ben was acting as her therapist, with nothing at all in it for him. She owed it to him to be honest. She also owed it to herself. How _did_ she feel about Spike? Not as a vampire, but as a guy she’d been hanging out with? A guy who was pregnant with her kid. Who’d been kind and understanding about her mom, especially when compared to Riley.

She thought of the time she’d spent with him, and not just the recent stuff. All the bantering, the fighting, the time he’d come to her to help stop Acathla. He’d teamed up with his mortal enemy to save the world, and he’d done it for love. Love of Drusilla and love of the world the way it was. He’d gone against his nature and ignored food when he was hungry, just because he loved her. What else would he do, if she encouraged him to keep doing good? _Could_ a vampire be good?

_I’m not supposed to think about him being a vampire,_ she reminded herself vaguely, already distracted by another thought. That flickering key from her dream again. Black and white and all the shades of gray in between. Could that mean…? He couldn’t be pure white – she didn’t think anyone could, really. Everyone had flaws and bits of darkness within them – but he wasn’t pure black either. He was all of those shades of gray. Could she help him find one of the paler shades? Or maybe one of the medium ones?

“Buffy?” Ben gently prodded.

“He’s got a weird sense of humor that I kind of like,” she said quietly. “And, and I like watching movies with him. We sort of get along…,” she smiled wryly, “when we aren’t fighting. I think… I don’t really know him well enough to know how I feel about him.”

“Maybe you should fix that?” he suggested. “Get to know each other as Buffy and Spike, not just the Slayer and a vampire. If you just don’t like him….” He shrugged. “You’ll have to figure out a way to at least get along, for the child’s sake.”

He was right about that. Buffy still remembered all of the fights between her parents before the divorce. She remembered Dawnie’s tear-streaked face as the younger girl had snuck into her room for comfort while the yelling was going on. _Didn’t actually happen. No Dawn back then._ She _remembered_ it though. She remembered holding her little sister and stroking her hair to help her sleep through it.

She was attracted to Spike. She could admit that. He was a very pretty vampire. Man. Very much a check in the eye candy department, whatever you wanted to call him. She’d discovered she liked watching movies with him, and patrolling, and just sort of hanging out. She needed to find out if there was more to it. Her friends would probably hate her for it, but she needed to find out. For their child’s – _we really need to figure out a name for the kid_ – sake, she needed to explore whatever it was that was between them.

 

**…**

 

When Buffy got home, Spike was awake, sitting in front of the TV with a bunch of snacks and a cooler of sodas. She slowly approached and sat down beside him, glancing over out of the corner of her eye before staring at down at her knees. He didn’t seem upset about last night. Should… should she apologize? What did you say to someone when you had mind blowingly awesome sex together after you raped them? _How ‘bout that sex? Great wasn’t it? Wanna do it again? There could be toys. And outfits._

“So, um… are you okay?” she asked quietly.

“Fine,” he answered without taking his eyes off of the TV.

“Good. That, that’s good.” Oh god, this was awkward. Could she just sink into the couch? Everything else seemed to get lost in there, why couldn’t she?

She glanced at him again just in time to see him look at her. He looked back at the TV, eyes staying glued to it as he leaned forward and pulled a diet coke out of the cooler. Buffy frowned in confusion. He hated diet coke. Why would he have one in there? Without a word, he handed it to her, then set a bag of Doritos between them.

“What are we watching?” she asked as she opened her drink. He’d had a diet coke ready for her? Just in case she came home while he was still watching movies? That was… why did that seem so weirdly sweet and touching?

“Big Trouble in Little China,” he answered. “Good movie. Well… not good, good, but fun.”

They sat together for a while, just hanging out and making the occasional comment on the movie. It was a weird movie, but she kind of liked it. Sort of how she felt about Spike. She came to a decision.

“So, um… Thanksgiving is coming up. I was planning to bring you with to Giles’s, but um… I’m officially inviting you. For Thanksgiving.” She flashed him an uncertain smile. “Guaranteed bear free this year. And, um, no being starved and tied to chairs.”

He clucked his tongue and shook his head in mock regret. “An’ here I was so looking forward to a repeat of our first little foray into bondage.”

She vaguely felt like she should be mad at him for that comment, but she was relieved at the snark. Snark was normal. It meant she hadn’t damaged things too badly between them. “Yeah, well, we’ll save that for when my friends, kid sister, and Watcher aren’t around,” she quipped back.

“Promises, promises.”

Buffy’s mouth went dry at the tone of his voice. He’d mostly come off as flippant, but under that…. Did he… _like_ that sort of thing? She remembered him telling her to hold him tighter and shivered. He had definitely liked that. It was sort of bondage-y, right? She suddenly imagined him chained to her bed again, this time willingly and completely naked. Her hormones did a happy dance of yayness.

_No, bad. There will be no sexy fun bondage time… tonight._ Oh god, he could probably smell her arousal. She glanced over at him. He was still staring straight ahead at the TV, at least giving her the illusion of stench privacy.

She took a deep breath, trying to compose herself, and asked, “Do… do you, uh, want to go out? With, with me. This weekend?”

He glanced at her, one brow raised. “Another not-a-date?”

_Yes!_ part of her yelled. _Tell him yes._ She swallowed and looked down, then back up. “Uh, no. It… it would be a real one. A real date.” She took another deep breath and continued on in a rush. “We’re having a kid together, and sometimes I feel like I barely know you. You know, beyond the whole mortal enemies, slayer/vampire thing. And, and that would be kind of weird for the kid to see, if that was all there was to us. There’d be all kinds of therapy bills. And, you know, we’d never be able to save for college.” She was rambling, wasn’t she? Oh, yeah. She needed to focus. “I want to know who you are. For our kid. And, and… well, for me too. I guess.”

He studied her for what felt like centuries, his head tilted slightly in silent contemplation. She fidgeted nervously. Maybe… maybe he didn’t want her anymore? Had sex with her – real sex instead of what the ritual had forced on them – just… turned him off? She couldn’t help remembering how Angel had been after. Was she… was she still not good? She opened her mouth to take it back, to tell him that she’d just been joking, when he finally responded.

“You’re for real with this? Not having me on?” he asked quietly. “’Cause if you’re serious, you have to give it a fair shake. No suddenly deciding in the middle that I’m a vampire, like you didn’t already know.”

“I know _what_ you are, Spike,” she answered, her own voice just as quiet. The fact that he seemed just as insecure helped her feel steadier. “I want to know _who_ you are…. Who I can help you to be. If you’ll let me.”

He looked away, then back at her, right into her eyes. “Right then. I’m game if you are.”

She nodded and they went back to watching the movie, stiff and uncomfortable. He’d agreed to go on a date with her. Shouldn’t that have _lessened_ the tension? It just seemed worse, like they’d never just hung out together watching movies before.

“You’re hogging the Doritos again, Slayer,” Spike grumped at her.

She moved the bag out of her lap and set it up between them again, then stuck her hand in to grab a chip. Spike’s brushed hers as he had the same idea at the same time. He froze for just a fraction of a second, as if waiting for some kind of reaction that didn’t come. He glanced at her, then down at their hands before pulling out a chip and popping it into his mouth. And just like that, the tension was gone. They had a date set up for this weekend, but other than that, it was just another afternoon spent watching movies. They were Buffy and Spike, two whales hanging out and stuffing themselves with snacks and sodas. She was a whale with a date. She could live with that.


	21. Chapter 21

So. It had come to this. Willow, Xander, Giles, even Dawn, they all stood against her, each with a look of determination. They wanted what they wanted, and to hell with her and what _she_ wanted. Never mind all of the sacrifices she’d made for them all. Never mind all the times she’d saved their lives. They didn’t care. Not when it came to this.

“I’m the Slayer. I fight and put my life on the line all the time. I deserve this,” Buffy said firmly. She wasn’t going to let them wear her down.

“I can’t believe you did this behind my back, Buffy,” Dawn said, sounding hurt. “We’re _sisters_. I could have distracted everyone while you snagged the pie, and then we could have shared it.”

They all glanced towards the counter at the last piece of pumpkin pie, sitting on a dessert plate with a fork. Xander had caught her with it before she could even take one bite. Instead of just letting her have it, the big jerk had tattled.

“Now, see here,” Giles began. “Seeing as how this is my flat, I feel that, that I should be the one to have the pie.”

“No way,” Xander protested. “This is an American holiday, and you’re all British-y and stuff. No extra pie for you.”

“I should get the pie! I’m a growing kid. I need pie to reach my full potential!”

“I helped Tara make the pie, so I should get it.”

“I say we rock, paper, scissors it,” Xander called out over the other two.

Everyone started talking at once at that point and didn’t notice Spike wandering into the kitchen until he snagged the contested plate of pie. Buffy narrowed her eyes at him as silence descended. Dawn possibly had a chance of getting the pie from him, but Buffy thought her own chances were a little bit higher. One date date did not equal regular unspontaneous sex, but she could totally promise kisses and cuddles once they got home.

“Put the pie down, and no one gets hurt,” Xander said slowly. “You’re British, too, so you don’t get extra pie either.”

Spike smirked and effectively ended the argument with one sentence. “The sprog wants pie.”

“That’s not fair,” Xander muttered without any heat behind it as the others gave up and went to the living room to watch TV. “You shouldn’t be allowed to call dibs on food if you haven’t even been born yet.” He eyed Spike. “And we only have his word that the spro- baby, wants pie. I bet it actually wants a carrot or something.”

“Nope. Sprog wants pie,” Spike insisted. He leaned against the counter and took a bite. Buffy watched, mesmerized. Why was that sexy? Someone shoving a fork in their mouth and then sliding it back out shouldn’t have been sexy. Watching Riley eat had always been kind of gross, and Angel hadn’t been into human food the way Spike was. Would Angel eating have been sexy? “Got mine earlier, so this one’s hers.”

“Hers?” Buffy repeated, vaguely aware of Xander giving her a strange look as he watched her watching Spike. “You think the baby is a girl?”

She was certain he was right, considering her slayer dream, but – she realized guiltily – she hadn’t told him about that. Why did he seem so sure about the gender? He couldn’t smell that or anything, could he? That would be really weird.

“Makes sense, don’t it? With the sprog being half slayer an’ all.” Spike shrugged and ate more pie. Damn sexy vampire and his sexy pie eating skills. Oh god, she was thinking of Spike as sexy. She’d been doing that a lot lately. Not that he’d ever exactly been all gross and unattractive, but she used to be able to pretend he was. Now she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off of him.

“I’m… I’m just gonna go watch TV with the others, now,” Xander said uncomfortably.

Buffy watched him leave, fear suddenly flashing through her. Oh god, Xander had seen her practically drooling over Spike. Maybe he’d assume it was the pie she was lusting after? _Yes, pie,_ she thought. _I am desperately in need of pie, and not Spike’s mouth all over me._ When had that become a need and not something too horrible to even think about?

“Keep having dreams about a little girl,” Spike said. “Figure it must be my subconscious remindin’ me that your lot are always girls.”

Worry about Xander learning her secret and thoughts about Spike’s sexiness were suddenly gone. He’d dreamed about the little girl? “Did... did she have curly brown hair and blue eyes?” It wasn’t possible. Spike didn’t have prophetic dreams. Did he?

“How did you…?” His eyes narrowed, then widened slightly. “You saw her, too.”

“Yeah,” Buffy answered slowly. “Um… I had a slayer dream. There was a snake that was going to eat Dawn, and you were there with the little girl….”

“And we led you into a church with some keys,” he finished quietly.

“Yeah.” How was this possible? How had Spike shared her dream? Was he in her head somehow? The ritual didn’t cause mind reading, did it? She was headed towards panic at the idea of Spike reading her thoughts when it suddenly hit her. He hadn’t shared _her_ dream. Like he’d said, the baby was half slayer, but she couldn’t dream. “You had her dream.”

She could see him working it all out in his head, the symbolism of the keys and what they meant. He was as good at playing the dumb blond as she was, but neither of them was actually stupid. He would figure out what the flickering key meant. She could see the instant he did. His eyes went wide, and the expression on his face….

“Buffy….” She shivered as he said her name, a breathy caress of sound.

“I know,” she whispered. “It’s… uh, not the first time one of my dreams has tried telling me about my love life. I got….” She paused for a moment to collect herself. This wasn’t easy to talk about, but Spike was going to be a part of her life for at least the next eighteen years, no matter what happened with their burgeoning relationship. She needed to learn to be open and honest with him. “I got a warning about Angel losing his soul, but I didn’t understand it. And, and then, um… you remember that dream I had about the Gentlemen?” She continued at his nod. “There was a part where, if I kissed Riley, the sun would go down.”

She’d never really understood that. _Fortune favors the brave_ , she thought, remembering the line from that dream. Except… dating Riley hadn’t really been the brave thing, had it? She’d gone for the normal – well, relatively normal considering all of the military stuff and what Professor Walsh had done to him – guy because that’s what everyone had seemed to want from her. She’d taken the easy path. The cowardly path. And the sun had gone down.

Her dreams showed _a_ future, not _the_ future. They were warnings of what could happen if she didn’t act or took the wrong action. She knew what would happen if she rejected the key to her heart. She’d lose her daughter. She’d feel unwanted, and Spike would take her away. He’d take himself away. She thought about what that would be like. There had been so many times when she’d wished he would do just that, go away forever. Now though…. She was scared to admit it to herself, but she didn’t like the idea.

She knew what would happen if she rejected him. Pain for all involved. What would happen if she accepted him? _And why_ , she wondered suddenly, _do my slayer dreams care about my love life? To the point of my daughter having the same dream?_ Angel losing his soul had impacted her ability to slay. Riley being in her life had done the same. But, Spike…. She thought of the patrols he’d been doing with her. She didn’t _need_ him with her, but it made things easier and faster, having him there as support.

She’d been trying to look beyond the fact that he was a soulless vampire, but it was always there, in the back of her mind. The only reason she could trust him as much as she did was because of a microchip the government had put in his head. _You trusted him even before that,_ part of her mind pointed out.

She had. She’d trusted him to actually have her back during the Acathla truce. She’d trusted him enough that she had never disinvited him, not even after he’d come back to town as a drunken mess because Dru had dumped him. Could she trust him not to eat people if the chip stopped working? She could spend her time wondering and agonizing over it, or she could put on her big slayer pants and actually _ask._

She took a deep breath and looked at Spike. He had finished off the pie and was watching her intently. “What would you do,” she asked, “if the chip stopped working? Would you go back to killing?”

His eyes glazed over slightly, and she knew he was thinking about it, how it would feel to kill again. He shuddered slightly and closed his eyes, obviously struggling with the thought. Finally, he sighed and opened his eyes. “I’d want to. Know you wouldn’t like it, though, even if it was no one you knew,” he said quietly. “I’d have to go off human blood. Messes with my impulse control…. Have to find something tastier than pig.” He grimaced in distaste. “Even with all that, no guarantee I wouldn’t slip.”

He started pacing in tight little circles, and absently ran his hands through his hair. “See, the thing is…. It’s not just the blood. That’s part of it. Not just the kill either, though God knows _that’s_ definitely part of it, too.” He went quiet again, and Buffy had the feeling he was trying to explain without driving her away. “It’s…. I miss the _bite_ ,” he finally admitted, turning to look at her. “The kill, I can get that with the demons. Not quite the same, but better in some ways, actually, more of a rush. Nothin’ really to sink my fangs into, though. Most demons taste like crap, and a plastic bag of blood just i’n’t the same.”

Part of Buffy wanted to tell him he was disgusting and storm out, but she held it back. He was being honest with her. He was a vampire. Of course he wanted to kill and bite. Even Angel had still wanted those things, despite his soul. He couldn’t change what he was, but he could fight against it, if she helped him. _You can’t change people…,_ she thought. What if she invested all of that time and energy into him, and it didn’t take? The rest of that saying – the part that usually got left out – came to her. _Unless they_ want _to change._

Spike wanted to change, didn’t he? He seemed like he did. For her. Because he loved her. Did she love him? _Could_ she love him? Was she even capable of love? Riley hadn’t seemed to think so. And he kind of had reason to. She _hadn’t_ loved him, she realized. She’d tried, because he was normal, and she was supposed to be into that.

She studied Spike. He looked defensive and a little nervous. He’d been honest with her, and he expected to be punished for it. She’d discovered some things about him that she liked. _And,_ she admitted reluctantly, _there’s a lot we have in common._ And then there was the whole him being the key to her heart thing.

“I don’t love you,” she said quietly. “But I… I think I’m starting to, to feel _something_.” She watched him as she spoke, the look in his eyes going from pain to cautious hope. There was something she could offer to help him, and it honestly wasn’t that different from what she was already doing. “If, if something happens to the chip….” She trailed off, swallowing to wet her suddenly dry throat. She wouldn’t be able to back away from this once she’d said it. Not without being a disgusting tease. “I can’t let you go around biting people. I just can’t. Like, I’d have to stake you level of can’t. So, instead... you, you could bite me. I mean, you’d have to ask me first and not just go all ‘ _grr, argh_ om nom nom’.” She was babbling again.

His eyes widened. “Buffy, you –”

“No matter what, we’re getting you off human once the baby’s born,” she continued in a rush. “We’ll, we’ll find something you like more than pig blood, and I’ll keep giving you some of mine. And, and if the chip stops working…. You tell me when the need to hunt is getting too strong. We’ll do extra patrols, and, and before you go all love child of the Count and Cookie Monster on the populace, you can bite me. Can you promise me that? That you’d tell me when it’s getting to be too much?”

Spike nodded slowly, looking stunned. “Yeah… Yeah, I think I can....”

“Thank you.” She glanced nervously towards the others, almost expecting them all to be staring at the two of them in disgusted anger. Giles was reading a book while everyone else was watching whatever was on TV. “I… I, um, I’m gonna go hang with the others.” She smiled nervously. “Have to do the whole social holiday thing.”

She fled the short distance to the living room before he could respond, leaving them both with a lot to think about.

 

**…**

 

Xander wandered away from the kitchen, thoughts and feelings all jumbled up inside him. It had been a strange Thanksgiving. Buffy’s mom was in the hospital, things between Buffy and Willow had been all weird and icy, and, and… Buffy was falling for Spike. Another damn vampire.

He wanted to feel rage, to blame Spike for everything and accuse him of using the situation to manipulate Buffy’s emotions. It was there, but distant. He’d gotten too close to Spike. He couldn’t see him as just another vampire anymore. He’d gone through what Faith had almost done to Xander himself. That had humanized him, dammit, made him more than just one of the things that had killed Jesse.

Then they’d started hanging out together. Not only was Spike pretty good at video games, he actually _got_ a lot of Xander’s pop culture jokes and even thought some of them were funny. Vampires – especially ones over a century old – weren’t supposed to be up on pop culture. Spike was a lot of things that a vampire wasn’t supposed to be.

Willow glanced at him as he walked past to sit beside Anya. He knew he should talk to her, find out what was going on with her and Buffy, but he didn’t think he could deal with that right now. Not with Buffy falling in love with Spike.

Xander had never liked Angel, even before finding out what he was. He liked to think that part of that had been a sense that he just wasn’t right for Buffy, but if he was honest with himself, a lot of it had been jealousy. Riley had been okay. Well, before he’d opened his mouth about his views on male rape and had turned into “I stab pregnant people. Ask me how” guy.

That last had been especially messed up. But before all that, he’d liked Riley and Buffy together. Riley was just a guy, and a military one at that. With the whole Halloween soldier thing, it had felt like Riley was a stand in for Xander. Like Buffy could have loved him if things had been different.

Anya shifted until she was curled up against him. He wrapped his arm around her and gazed at her. An ex-demon even older than Spike who might have killed more people. It was something he didn’t like to think about, but it was true. She wasn’t like that anymore because her power source had been destroyed. Her ability to be a vengeance demon had been taken away. Spike’s ability to be a normal – if that term could ever really be used for bleached menace – vampire had been taken away.

Before his thoughts could continue down that path, Buffy came into the living room. He pressed a kiss against Anya’s temple and murmured in her ear, “Be right back. I need to talk to Buffy for a minute.” She sighed and pulled away from him. “I’ll make it up to you tonight. We can play dungeon master.” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s about Spike.”

She relaxed at that. She wasn’t happy about how much time he spent with Willow and Buffy, but she approved of time spent with Spike. Something about male bonding leading to better orgasms. There was probably a logical – by Anya’s standards anyway – explanation for that thought, but Xander really didn’t want to know what it was.

Xander shook his head and stood up, intercepting Buffy before she could sit down. “Can we talk outside for a minute?” he asked quietly.

She frowned, her nose wrinkling up cutely, and shrugged. “I guess so.” She led the way out of the apartment, waiting until he closed the door before saying, “If this is about Willow, I really don’t wa-”

“Are you having sex with Spike?”

Xander was as surprised by the question as Buffy looked. He hadn’t meant to ask that. He hadn’t even consciously thought about it until he had blurted it out. _Was_ she having sex with Spike? Was it any of his business? _Yeah, it kind of is,_ he realized. Not because Buffy was his friend and he thought that meant he had a right to poke his nose into her sex life. Spike had – damn him – sort of become his friend. The damn vampire really _was_ like some kind of fungus.

Buffy flinched, a panicky and defensive look in her eyes. “I’m not… I didn’t…. It, it really isn’t any of your business.”

“Buffy, you’re an amazing, good person, and I know you’d never use someone like Faith did, but….” He sighed, struggling to say what he wanted to say. It wasn’t easy for him, and there was a part of him screaming in disgusted horror at the thought of Buffy touching a vampire while in her right mind. “When I slept with her… I thought it _meant_ something. And then you told me…. I felt stupid and used and, and _dirty_. And then stupid again because guys aren’t supposed to feel that way. Spike loves you. Don’t sleep with him again unless you mean it. It isn’t fair to him.”

“I know,” Buffy said quietly, looking down and crossing her arms over her chest. “It, it was only once. It just sort of _happened_. We, uh, we’re kind of dating now.” She looked up at him and bit her lip before hesitantly asking, “Xander, I never asked…. Did, did you love Faith?”

Xander looked away, struggling against the feelings of shame and embarrassment. He didn’t know how he’d felt about Faith. It had been such a strange night, running from zombies while being rejected – supposedly for his own good – by all of his friends. He’d still had a crush on Buffy – one that he had to admit was still there, though not as strong – and had been hurting from Cordelia dumping him.

He’d been a virgin, and he’d thought the sex was more than just sex. That it would be the start of a relationship. When she’d kicked him out without even giving him a chance to get dressed, he’d felt like a cheap whore. Then he’d tried to convince himself it had meant more to her than it had.

He took a deep breath and answered Buffy’s question. “I don’t think so, but… I think I could have been. If things had been… real. But I was just a body to her. No one should feel like that, not even the evil undea- _ooph!_ ” Buffy was suddenly hugging him hard enough to drive the air out of his lungs. “Need… to… breathe…” he gasped out.

“Sorry,” she said, immediately letting go. “And I’m sorry that happened to you. It’s not something I’m going to do. Me and Spike… we’re taking it slow. I need to get to know him, for the baby. If it goes beyond that… it’ll be because we _both_ feel it.”

Xander nodded jerkily, feeling awkward and unsettled after poking at old wounds. “I don’t…. I didn’t actually think you’d do something like that on purpose, but sometimes…. Well, you know Spike is in love with you, but you might not have realized even consensual sex could hurt him, especially with all of the other stuff you’re dealing with. Not even a guy who used to eat people deserves that.”

“It’s okay.” She gave him a reassuring smile, though there was a shadow of something behind her eyes. “Let’s go on back inside. Anya is probably missing you.”

They went inside, and Xander sat next to his girlfriend again. As she cuddled against him, he thought about love. This was love, what he had with Anya. She was an ex-demon, and he loved her, warts and all. And he had some pretty nasty warts himself if he was honest.

Spike and Buffy. God knew there were problems there, and he wouldn’t have approved not that long ago. He felt like he’d been growing up lately. He had his own apartment and was even starting to learn that love didn’t care about logic or right and wrong. Something he should have realized a long time ago. After all, he had dated Cordelia. Who was he to throw stones about Buffy dating Spike? He looked from slayer to vampire and mentally gave them his blessing.


	22. Chapter 22

Spike was grumpy and out of sorts, and the cold, goo covered wand being pressed against his belly while Buffy and her best mate watched wasn’t exactly making things better. It was nowhere near the worst day of his unlife, but it was definitely far from the best. He’d woken from a dream about one of his more brutal killings, feeling disturbed and unsettled instead of the usual wistful regret.

Following _that_ uncomfortable bit of oddness, he’d tried to get dressed only to discover that his jeans wouldn’t button anymore, not even when using one of Buffy’s hair rubber bands to extend the loop. He’d put things off a touch too long, and had been forced to wear sweatpants and one of his red button down shirts like a gormless twit who didn’t know how to dress himself properly. Thank god they’d been able to get to a specialty store to buy a few black utility kilts and some baggy aran sweaters.

Now here he was, wearing nothing but his boots and one of those kilts while the doc prodded at him and Buffy and Willow twittered on together. Why was Red even there? Yeah, he supposed it was good for the fragile reconciliation that had happened last week at Christmas, but this wasn’t really any of her business, even if she seemed to think she could help if the ultrasound didn’t work quite right.

Why did _he_ even have to be here? People had been dropping sprogs for ages without any of this modern rot. He wanted to kill things, then go home, curl up on the couch with a heating pad against his aching back, and watch sappy movies that he could pretend Dawn had picked out. Maybe work a bit on those booties he’d been knitting when no one but Joyce was about.

He was glad she was doing better after her surgery. Was fun to sit about with her and watch Passions, and she was good about answering his questions about the sprog. He wished she was here instead of the bloody witch.

“There we go,” Ben said, and Spike was suddenly distracted from his thoughts by the image on the screen.

He stared at the movement, mesmerized. He knew the sprog had a heartbeat – he’d been able to hear it, hadn’t he? – but being able to _see_ it.... That was just _neat_. Two arms, two legs, a head. All looked normal, though he wasn’t an expert on this sort of thing. Beautiful little thing, wasn’t she?

“Is, is it supposed to look like that?” Buffy asked dubiously. “I mean… it’s an image of a baby. Isn’t it supposed to be cute? That’s not cute.” She turned to look at Willow. “Is it cute? Is there something wrong with my cute detector?” Before anyone could answer that question, she suddenly turned towards Ben with a look of alarm. “There’s only one baby in there, right? There’s not, like, eighty or something, right?”

Spike looked at her incredulously, one brow raised. “What kind o’ daft question is that? ‘Course there aren’t _eighty_. I’d’ve outgrown the bloody _house_ and not just my clothes.”

Buffy blushed in embarrassment. He felt vaguely bad about embarrassing her, but had to admit it was an adorable look on her. “Well, I, uh, just had this dream. Pretty sure it wasn’t a slayer dream or anything, but I was a janitor at a hospital and there were dirty diapers everywhere,” she babbled. “And then I was at home, and there were more diapers and babies stacked everywhere. And you were just laying there on the couch being fed grapes by Mom and Dawn while I had to change the diapers.” She glared at him, and he smirked.

“Last bit sounds good. Wouldn’t mind a bit of pampering.” That was more true than he wanted to admit.

“There’s just the one,” Ben said, giving the agitated Slayer a reassuring smile. He squinted at the screen and moved the ultrasound wand slightly. “And if I’m reading this right, it’s a healthy little girl.” He winced suddenly. “And, uh, I’m actually supposed to ask first if you wanted to know the gender.”

“Already kinda knew,” Spike said. “So no worries on that, mate.”

“Oooh, we need to come up with a name for her,” Willow squealed excitedly.

Spike had always kind of liked Willow, but his opinion of her had taken a bit of a nosedive lately. The grating sound of her voice and her presumption that she had any say in his daughter’s name weren’t helping with that any.

“I’d kind of like to name her after my cousin,” Buffy said.

Ben gave him a look that clearly said, “I’m staying the hell out of this,” and started getting the equipment cleaned up and put away. Spike sat up glared at the two women. They didn’t seem to notice.

“We should have a baby shower,” Willow suggestion. “You, me, Tara, your mom, Dawnie,” she paused, her nose wrinkling slightly, “Anya.”

Buffy frowned and glanced at Spike. “Shouldn’t Spike be invited too, since he’s the one carrying Celia?”

“Baby showers are all girly and stuff, why would he want to go to it?” Willow asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“Her name is Thursday,” Spike gritted out. “And, actually, I _would_ wanna be invited, but only if _you_ weren’t there.” He glared at Willow. “You gave Joyce a bloody _beer hat_ when she was in hospital. Sprog doesn’t need the types of things you’d come up with for her.”

“Hey, I give good gifts!” Willow protested in indignation.

“Thursday?” Buffy said at the same time, her nose wrinkling in confusion. Spike barely noticed the adorableness of it. He was too brassed off at the moment. “That’s not a name, it’s a day of the week.”

“I’d bloody well dust myself and the sprog too before I let her be named something that bloody close to Cecily,” he snarled, standing up and angrily pulling his sweater - he was glad he’d decided to take it off. Bloody thing was new, and no doubt would have attracted goo -  and coat back on.

“Yeesh, drama much?” Willow muttered.

Spike stormed off, ignoring the witch’s comment. He also ignored Buffy as she called out his name and asked who Cecily was.

 

**…**

 

As they walked through the night streets, Buffy watched Spike out of the corner of her eye, wondering if he was still mad. Considering he was stomping along with his jaw clenched, she was going to assume it was a big yuh-huh on the continued grump-on. He’d been in a foul mood since discovering his clothes wouldn’t fit anymore, and dragging him in to get a checkup from Ben had just made things worse.

 _I shouldn’t have invited Willow along without even asking Spike,_ she thought guiltily. The stitches holding their friendship together were still new and fragile. She’d thought looking at ultrasound images would be a nice, girly bonding moment. It had been, but she’d been so focused on that, she’d sort of excluded the person actually carrying the baby.

She looked down at the ground, then back at Spike again. Angry, kilt-wearing vampire. God, he was gorgeous. He always had been, but the little baby bump hiding under his sweater made him seem even more attractive to her. Her child was inside of him, and that combined with the things she’d been slowly learning about him made him almost irresistible.

She wanted to push him up against one of the buildings and kiss him. She wanted to run the fingers of one hand through his hair and set the gelled down curls free while the other hand snuck into that sexy kilt to play with another set of curls. She wanted to… she wanted to stick her hand under his sweater and touch him like one of those creepy people who accosted pregnant women at the grocery store.

With the mood he was in, she was pretty sure he’d try to bite her hand off, chip be damned. So even though her hands were practically _itching_ with the need to pet him, she was going to be keeping them to herself. _We do not give belly rubs to the pregnant and grouchy undead,_ she told herself firmly.

She sighed and tried to at least alleviate some of the grouchy. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? Me and Willow kinda got carried away.” He still looked angry. “We can compromise on the name. What about Lelia?”

“Her name is Thursday,” Spike growled.

“That’s not a _name_ ,” she huffed in exasperation. Why was he so insistent on this? The baby hadn’t been conceived on a Thursday, and even if she had been, he wouldn’t have wanted their little girl named for _that_. “And you don’t even pronounce it right. She’d be called Thuhsday by you and Giles and Thursday by everyone else. She’d end up with some kind of complex.”

He didn’t even dignify that with a verbal reply. He just gave her a look that clearly indicated his scorn. Well, okay, yeah, mocking his accent – which she could at least admit to herself was sexy as hell – had been kind of low and stupid, but still.... It was a weird name no matter how it was pronounced.

She sighed again, this time in frustration. “Why are you so set on calling our daughter a weekday?”

“Because it’s her _name_ ,” he said. “’S what I named her while I was still chained to your bed an’ is the only reason she’s still alive. I named her – like the bloody masochistic idiot I am – and she was… _real_.” He was quiet for a moment. He still seemed to be riding a mood, but it was mellowing a little. “She was real, and she was _mine_. So… I couldn’t kill her.”

Buffy let that sink in for a moment. Most people just weren’t real to him, she knew that. The people who were…. Well, it was like the difference between someone’s pet parrot and the chicken you got from a fast food joint. One was a beloved family friend and the other was a couple boxes of McNuggets. You didn’t care about the McNuggets, you just ate them. She was pretty sure Spike would still love their girl even if they called her something different, but he’d bonded with her through the name.

“Why Thursday?” she asked. Maybe it wouldn’t be so weird if she understood the reasoning behind, if there even was any. Sometimes, Spike was just _weird_.

He shrugged uncomfortably. “From the poem, inn’t? Monday’s Child.” She stared at him blankly. Monday’s Child? What did that have to do with naming a kid Thursday? He huffed an exasperated sigh and explained further. “Mother bloody Goose. Didn’t your mum ever read to you at bedtime?”

At her continued blank look, he muttered about bloody colonials and started reciting. “Monday’s child is fair of face; Tuesday’s child is full of grace. Wednesday’s child is full of woe; Thursday’s child has far to go. Friday’s child is loving and giving; Saturday’s child works hard for its living. But the child that is born on the Sabbath day, is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.”

“Huh.” Buffy thought about the poem as they continued walking together. She’d never heard it before, but she liked it. It had sounded nice and oddly soothing as Spike had recited it. “I was born on a Monday.”

His lips twitched into a small smile. “Fits.” He tilted his head, considering. “’Course, most of ‘em fit you. Peg you as Saturday, though, personally, way you work yourself.”

“Not Sunday?” she teased.

“God, no,” he said with a theatrical shudder, his expressive face squinching slightly in disgust at the thought. “Always thought Sunday’s child sounded a right boring ponce.”

There was another silence, this one much more companionable than at the beginning of their rounds. Her gaze kept straying to his boots, then traveling up the length of his deliciously bare legs to the kilt before lingering on the spot just above it. _Distraction,_ she thought desperately. _I need a distraction before I jump him in the middle of the street._

“Do you think it’s true?” she asked. “The thing about what day you were born on.”

“Dunno,” he answered with a shrug. “Um, my mum, though, she always thought mine fit.” Before she could ask what day he’d been born, he stopped and frowned. “Why do you keep lookin’ at me like that?”

She blushed and hurried on, turning into the alley behind a bar vampires had started frequenting more now that the Bronze was closed for repairs. He followed her, one brow raised in a silent demand for an answer.

“I… um… You’re really, really hot,” she blurted. “And, and I, uh, need to rub your belly.”

Spike’s expression somehow managed to be flattered, confused, and irritated all at the same time. “ _Need_ to, eh? News flash for you, Slayer, I’m not your sodding poodle.”

“I know that!” she snapped. “It’s not like that. My… _our_ … kid is inside of you, and, and I just need to touch you. Not, you know, like the kind of need where I’d cease to exist if I don’t get to, but….”

He snorted in annoyed amusement. “Sorta like how I really need a bloody smoke from time to time?”

Being a non-smoker, she had no idea if it was quite the same, but she jumped on it. “Yeah, kind of like that.”

“Sucks to be deprived o’ that sort of thing, don’t it?” he asked with a smirk. “But no worries, I can’t actually bash you in the head if you try to indulge, now can I?”

Buffy winced. She’d kind of walked right into that, hadn’t she? Spike had been helping her work on her instinct control through active meditation, but that didn’t exactly erase everything she’d already done. She wished she’d just kept her mouth shut. She’d managed to get him into a good mood, and now everything was awkward.

He sighed and leaned against the wall, arm held out in invitation. “Come on, then,” he grumbled in a resigned tone.

She snuggled against him, and he wrapped his arm around her. One of the things she’d discovered about him was that he was a hugger and a cuddler. Her mom and Dawn were on the receiving end of that more than she was, but she was starting to close the gap as they continued dating.

She slipped her hand up under his sweater, barely touching him until she rested her hand against his chest. Spike shivered slightly and nuzzled her hair as she slowly stroked her hand down his torso until she got to his lower belly. Her fingers splayed out as she gently rubbed the area. It felt… nice, touching him like that while he held her.

“So, what day _were_ you born?” she murmured, her voice soft enough that it didn’t ruin the moment.

Unfortunately, her slayer tinglies, (as opposed to her Spike snuggling tinglies,) informing her of an unknown vampire did ruin it. Particularly when followed by said vampire leading a drunk woman into their alley. With a low growl, Spike pulled away from her and darted towards the other vampire.

Buffy watched, but didn’t attempt to stop him. She figured he just needed a good dose of violence. She was pretty sure he wasn’t trying to do her job or protect her, both things that would have irritated the hell out of her. Considering a good slay always put him in a good mood, she was all for him getting as much of violence as he needed, so long as he eventually remembered to share.

The vampire moved at the last second, putting his potential victim between himself and Spike just as the platinum blond threw his first punch. He tried to pull it back, but his fist impacted with the woman’s cheek hard enough to make them both scream in pain, Spike dropping to his knees and clutching his head.

 _Oh, shit,_ Buffy thought in dismay, pulling out a stake as she lunged at the vampire. She staked him immediately – not even taking time for a witty one-liner – before dropping to her knees beside Spike. He waved her away towards the woman, muttering curses in British and what she was pretty sure was a demon language.

She turned towards the near victim, wincing. _Oooh, that’s gotta hurt,_ she thought in sympathy. She wasn’t a medical expert or anything, but the woman’s cheek looked broken. Not fun, especially if you didn’t have enhanced healing abilities. There was an odd, choked off sound, and Buffy glanced over her shoulder. Spike was staring at the woman in frightened horror.

She looked at the woman, then back at Spike, frowning slightly as she tried to figure out what was wrong. Was he worried she’d blame him for this? It had been an accident. She knew that. Irritation and anger started rising together. Why didn’t he have more faith in her? She’d been trying, damn it!

She sighed heavily and rubbed her face. “I’m not mad at you, Spike. I know it was an accident. You were trying to save her life. I’m not exactly going to go off on you for trying to help someone.”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment or even acknowledging that she’d spoken. He just stared at the woman. Finally, he whispered, “Is… is she okay?”

Buffy stared at him, startled by the question. She knew he was trying, for her sake, to be a good person, but this was just… off somehow. Something was very wrong here.

“Um… she has a broken cheek, I think, but she should be okay. Probably.” She had been a more or less normal girl until she was fifteen, but so much had happened since being called that she didn’t really remember how healing worked for the average person on a personal level.

Spike looked like he was going to be sick. “I… I did that. I didn’t mean to…. Why…?”

“Yeah, I know, I just said I knew it was accident,” she said more sharply than she meant to. She’d been trying to be patient about his weird mood swings, but he didn’t even seem to be listening to her right now. She felt like she was being blamed for blaming him for something she didn’t blame him for, which was a confusing jumble of blame and not blame. “Are you even paying the least bit of attention to the words coming out of my mouth?”

“I don’t know her,” he said with an odd intensity. He was shaking slightly.

 _Well, duh,_ Buffy barely kept from saying out loud. _I didn’t think you did._ His eyes were wide and slightly panicked, and the feeling that something very weird was going on got even stronger. Spike was freaked out, and it didn’t actually seem to have anything to do with her.

“I don’t know her,” he insisted again. “Why do I…. I don’t _know_ her! She’s nothing but a sodding happy meal on legs!”

“Okay,” Buffy said slowly, cautiously shifting closer to him. “You don’t know her. We’ve established that. There are lots of people you don’t know in Sunnydale. It’s not a big deal.”

What the hell was going on? Had the woman accidentally groped him or something without Buffy noticing? Was this some kind of PTSD thing from the ritual? He was doing a lot better, but he still reacted badly if she startled him.

“It bloody well _is_ a big deal!” he shouted, getting to his feet and starting to pace. “I hurt her! She should be _nothing_ to me, but I hurt her, and I feel bloody _guilty_ about it!”

Buffy paled, her eyes going wide as she finally understood. The way Spike had explained it, one of the things losing the soul meant for a vampire – or at least this particular vampire – was a sort of myopia when it came to people. If he got to know someone, they were close and in focus. They were a person to him. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t kill them, but if he liked the person, he’d at least feel bad about it. If he didn’t know someone, they were far away and blurry, no more a person than a cow grazing in a distant pasture.

If he was feeling bad about accidentally punching a stranger while trying to save her life, there was only one explanation. _Damn it, Willow,_ she thought, jaw and fists clenched in anger. _Why the hell can’t you ever just leave things alone?_

 

**…**

 

Willow wasn’t hard to find. After Spike had stormed out of the hospital in a snit of epic proportions, she’d said she was going to the Magic Box. That’s where she was, along with Tara, Dawn, and Giles, all of them trying to find more information about Dawn. The only problem was, Willow insisted she hadn’t done the ensouling spell on Spike. Since she would have needed two other people with her to do it, Buffy believed her.

Now Buffy was pacing the shop floor while they tried to figure out what was going on with Spike. She glanced over at him. He was sitting on the floor, huddled in the corner with his boots and socks off while he rubbed at his noticeably swollen ankles. There were a lot of things that he was going to get to experience that she was kind of jealous of, but the edema and backaches? Not so much.

She went over to him, keeping her movements slow and obvious so she didn’t startle him, and sat down. She pulled his feet into her lap and started massaging his ankles – moving her hands upwards to work the settled fluid back into what passed for vampire circulation – while her thoughts spun around in circles. He was still kind of dazed and shocky, but still seemed to basically be himself. If the chip were to suddenly stop working, she didn’t think he’d try to eat anyone – and not just because she didn’t want him to – but other than that, he was just… Spike. A dazed and understandably shocked Spike.

 Maybe he didn’t actually have a soul. Maybe excessive guilt was just one of those pregnancy things. He _was_ able to feel guilt when it came to someone he actually cared about. Maybe the screwed up hormones were making it sort of ooze over onto strangers.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Tara coming to kneel beside her, holding out a baggy of herb-filled capsules. “I… uh, was going to give you this before class tomorrow,” she said with a shy smile. “It, it’s the strengthened herbs to, to help you lactate.” She glanced at Spike and her smile got wider, though a little wobbly. “I, I heard you named the baby Thursday. I l-like it.”

Spike blinked at her and seemed to shake things off at least a bit. “Glad one of you birds has decent taste,” he muttered.

He was talking again, which was a good sign. A quiet Spike was freaky and unnatural. Tara really had been a godsend through all of this. Freeing Spike, being willing to help her with the lactation thing, helping with Dawn while Mom had been in the hospital, stopping the argument at Christmas about the safety of bleaching roots by using magic to temporarily turn Spike’s white…. The shy young woman really was incredible.

“Friday,” Spike said suddenly. Buffy stared at him blankly. It was Wednesday, not Friday. And what did the day of the week have to do with anything? “The day I was born,” he clarified. “It was Friday.”

Friday. _Friday’s child is loving and giving,_ she remembered. His mom had thought it fit him. She felt like she’d been getting little glimpses of who he’d been as a human. Maybe she’d finally get to fully see him. She knew the soul was hurting him - or would be once the shock had worn off more - but….

“Buffy,” Giles called out. There was an odd tone to his voice that she couldn’t really place. “Are you quite certain that what Spike is experiencing is the return of his soul? The effects of the ritual are varied on the, uh, submissive partner based on species and gender, but there, there is no indication that ensoulment is one of those effects.”

“’S not _my_ soul,” Spike said quietly. “Don’t fit quite right, but feels… related.” He hesitated a moment, only his expression indicating he had more to say. “I think….” He shook his head and looked directly into Buffy’s eyes. “It’s _hers_. Sprog has a soul.”

 

**…**

 

Once the store was empty, Giles carefully poured out a shot of scotch. There was no denying it anymore. Buffy was falling in love with Spike. It was there for anyone to see. The way she’d been _worried_ about the possibility of the return of his soul rather than unequivocally pleased. The look of tenderness on her face when she’d sat down on the floor with the vampire.

He knocked back the shot and poured another, thinking of when he’d suggested to Spike that the chip was an opportunity for good. Perhaps his timing had been off. Could Spike be turned towards good in a way that would last beyond the child’s birth? Would he do it for Buffy, or would he try to drag the slayer down into the dark?

He drank and poured another. All he knew for certain was that his dear girl had fallen for another bloody vampire. _Perhaps it is fated,_ he mused. _Vampire and slayer. They are forever connected, predator and prey._ Perhaps that was the real reason for the barbaric test the girls were put through on their eighteenth birthdays. Giles didn’t know, but right now, he wasn’t going to look for answers. He was going to get well and truly drunk. He could take a deeper look into the Watcher diaries after he sobered up.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has some accompanied fanart by Bewildered (she is awesome!) at the end. It doesn't show anything you couldn't see in the show itself, but it might not be suitable for viewing at work.

Buffy waved to Xander and Anya – the last party guests to leave – before closing the front door. She padded towards the couch in the pink, knitted wool socks that had mysteriously appeared on her pillow that morning and sat down beside Spike. It had been a quiet, peaceful birthday for once, something she considered a minor miracle.

“Seen your mates all off, then, love?” Spike asked around the cinnamon stick he was chewing on as she snuggled against him.

“Yep,” she answered, smooching him on the cheek.

Even with the baby’s soul affecting him, he was still essentially himself, just with an ineffable _more_ ness. Kind of like his inner self was gaining weight along with the rest of him. _Ooh, yeah, never, ever going to word it that way out loud,_ she thought with a wince. He hadn’t exactly complained about it – beyond bitching that his usual clothes didn’t fit anymore – but he was pretty image conscious, especially for someone without a reflection.

The only differences she could really pinpoint were that he was more likely to get quiet and contemplative at times and an increase in nightmares. She couldn’t help wondering why it had been so different for Angel. With his soul, he’d been almost a completely different person. Hadn’t he? Some of Angel’s less endearing behaviors niggled at the back of her mind.

_No,_ she told herself firmly. She wasn’t going to think about Angel right now. It was her birthday, and her mom and sister were both sleeping, leaving her all alone with her pretty, pretty vampire. _Want, take, have,_ the words drifted through her mind, leaving her suddenly unsettled as the specter of Faith rose between them.

Buffy had wanted, and she’d taken, and she’d fallen in love with a soulless vampire. The first two had been because of the damn ritual, but that last…. That was all her. She liked the extra the baby’s soul was giving Spike, but – as hard as it was for her to admit – she’d fallen for him before that, and she’d still love him even after the baby was born. Just like she’d loved Angel even without the soul. Angel, whose soulless self hadn’t been willing to change for her.

Spike was willing, and that meant a lot to her. Just by itself, it was amazing, but not enough to base a relationship on. There was more to it, though. She liked spending time with him. They could talk for hours or even just be quiet together. He was funny, oddly insightful, and never made her feel like a freak, even when she…. She blushed a little at the thought. Spike liked being tied up when it was his choice. Sometimes it wasn’t even sexual. It helped him sleep, which was something he was having problems with.

Their relationship was far from perfect – they both made mistakes and had had some pretty nasty shouting matches – but that just meant it was _real_. Spike was real, not just some generic being carved from the same material as Angel. Buffy had a sudden epiphany. Spike wasn’t Angel, and she wasn’t Faith. There was a darkness inside of her, but that didn’t mean she’d turn out like the other slayer.

She banished Angel and Faith from her mind and snuck her hand up under Spike’s sweater. It was her birthday, and she had a nice-smelling, cuddly man with a sexy baby bump she’d been given permission to rub her “grubby little slayer paws” all over when they were alone together.

“You know, Slayer,” he said, sounding amused. “I’m not actually a magic lamp, and the sprog isn’t a genie. Won’t come out early from you rubbin’ at me.”

She looked up at him in a mock pout, “Aww, but I wanted a baby to snuggle for my birthday.” She sighed melodramatically. “There go my plans. Guess I’ll just have to sit here and admire the socks Santa left as my birthday present.”

“Santa, is it?” he asked, one brow raised as he fought not to grin at her.

“Yuh-huh,” she insisted, wiggling her toes in the cozy pink wool. “I’ve never gotten a birthday present from Santa before, but the mystery mint green socks and scarf at Christmas had to be from him. These look like they were made by the same person, so it had to be Santa.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed. “That so? Wearing another man’s knitting, are you?” He growled playfully and shoved her down across the couch gently enough not to trigger the chip. He pinned her, his face only inches from her own as he whispered huskily, “Might just have to shag those little pink socks right off you.”

“Oh yeah? I’d like to see you try.” She would really, _really_ like to see him try.

She was feeling all tingly in a way that had nothing to do with Spike being a vampire. Though the specific slayer tingle that meant he was around had started to feel kind of nice in and of itself. A sort of comforting buzz that meant he was there.

He kissed her, a feather light brush of his lips that became more insistent until she opened her mouth to him, drawing his cool tongue into her warmth. She slid her hands back under his sweater, this time gliding them along his back. He broke the kiss and went for her neck, nibbling and licking. Oh god, she felt like she was on fire, like she’d burn through the couch and down through the floor into the basement.

And that, of course, was when thumping footsteps that could only belong to Dawn sounded from the steps.

“Bloody hell,” Spike snarled, hastily pulling away from her.

_I’m going to kill her,_ Buffy seethed as her little sister wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water. _If I get a jury of women and gay guys and they see Spike in that kilt, there’s no way they’d convict me for it._

Dawn finally went back upstairs after what had to have been an entire gallon of water. The mood was kind of dead, but she’d been dead once, too, before being revived by Xander. She was pretty sure some more kisses and cuddles could “wake the dead,” so to speak.

Once she was sure Dawn was back in bed, she leaned in towards Spike, intending to make sure he was wearing the kilt in the approved fashion. Unfortunately, he had other ideas. He stood up abruptly and headed towards the stairs.

“Sorry, Slayer, bit tired,” he said before going up.

Buffy groaned in frustration and flopped back down. She was cursed. She had to be. It’s why her birthdays never worked out right. _Still the best one in years_ , she had to reluctantly admit, even if her raging hormones were loudly disagreeing with her.

 

**…**

 

Spike shut the door to Buffy’s room, leaning against it and closing his eyes. Memories flickered through his mind. Making love to Dru on a woman’s cooling corpse, her daughter coming down the stairs, screaming in horror as she saw them. Not the same – not even close – to Dawn almost catching him with her sister, but….

He shuddered. Bloody soul. It wouldn’t have affected him like this without it. It would have just been a bittersweet memory of Drusilla. God, he was a monster. He swallowed hard and opened his eyes to stare at his hands. Dirty, filthy, forever stained with blood. _I touched_ her _with these hands_.

_Hateful thoughts and wicked deeds,_  
_Trample joy until it bleeds._  
_Bathed in tears, awash in screams,_  
_Stains that never can come clean.  
_ _Can wretched heart be home to seeds?_

He blinked and looked away from his hands, his gaze drawn to the bedding on the floor. Buffy tended to spend at least half the night in the bed with him – usually after he’d woken her by screaming like a nancy-boy during one of his nightmares – but it was still his and the floor hers. She spent her nights fighting to keep people safe, and he was making her sleep on the sodding _floor_.

He pushed away from the door and bent down to pick the bedding up and stuff it into the closet. If one of them had to sleep on the floor, it’d be him, and he sure as hell didn’t deserve padding and blankets and pillows. _Bloody damn sprog, making me feel like this,_ he thought, frustration and anger mingling with the guilt. And now he was brassed off at an unborn baby. God, he really was a monster.

He stared at the weapons chest in the closet. _Grab a dagger, cut the brat out an’ I won’t feel like this anymore…. No!_ That wasn’t the soul talking. It was him. Thursday was _his_. His to care for, his to love. He clenched his fists. He’d done a lot of things that made him sick to think about, but dwelling on it wasn’t going to change a sodding thing. That woman was still dead, and her girl too, eaten as dessert on her mother’s corpse.

Yeah, he felt bad about it, but wallowing in the guilt wasn’t going to do anyone any good. It wouldn’t bring them back. All it did was hurt him and – even worse – Buffy. It was her sodding _birthday_ and he’d left her alone and horny because he was a miserable wanker crying over spilt milk. Time to put his big boy pants on and head back down there. Or, well, his metaphorical ones anyway. None of his jeans fit anymore, and the waistband on the bloody sweatpants had become uncomfortable. Besides, he looked bloody fantastic in a kilt.

The door opened, and Buffy walked in, looking worried. That shifted to confusion when she noticed the bare spot where her bedding had been. Bugger. How was he supposed to explain it without upsetting her? He was pretty sure she’d be justifiably brassed off at him if he told her he’d been planning to curl up on the floor. All _that_ would have accomplished was waking up with more aches and pains than usual.

“You’re, uh, twenty now. Thought that was old enough to be sleeping all regular like with the bloke you got up the duff,” he said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. She really shouldn’t be sleeping on the floor anymore, but that didn’t mean he had to.

He liked it when she got in the bed with him. She’d curl up face to face and take away the pillow he’d started needing between his legs to be comfortable, replacing it with her thigh. Sometimes she’d move it higher, slowly rubbing against him and…. Oh god, she was beautiful.

He wasn’t sure which one of them moved first, but they met in the middle of the room, mouths locked in joyous battle while hands roamed feverishly over bodies. They somehow made it to the bed, his sweater and all her clothes but the socks ending up on the floor. He started to take the kilt off, but she growled at him – a sound that jolted through him like a caress to the nethers – and shoved him down on the bed. The instant she straddled him, he rolled them over.

“Oh, darn,” she panted out, managing to give him a little pout. “Forgot to do my last breast stimulation for the day.”

“Did you now? Could help with that,” he murmured, kissing down the length of her neck, then sucking lightly at first one nipple, then the other. He didn’t care about the size, just that they were hers, but her breasts had started getting a little bigger since she’d been taking Tara’s herb mixture.

He flipped them again. Switching from time to time was fun, but he really did prefer the woman on top, something he had refused to let the ritual take away from him. Besides, with the sprog in the way, it was more comfortable.

“I might have to take you up on that,” she said as she used the ropes tied to the headboard to bind his wrists together above his head.

Then she pushed the kilt up, straddling him carefully to put her breasts near his mouth without placing pressure on his abdomen. A moan escaped her as he sucked at one of her nipples, his tongue swirling around it. He shuddered, arousal growing even more as the nub of flesh stiffened from his ministrations.

She was so _warm_. Her heat seeped into him. Her hands, her body, her molten core as she lowered herself onto him. The warmth of _her_. Someone who could love him despite all of the things he’d done. He suddenly regretted that the soul he had was only borrowed. He could _feel_ her, inside, like she was touching a part of him he’d never had before while this close to another person. Once Thursday was born, he wouldn’t have a soul to give her, but everything else....

_Love you, Buffy,_ he thought. _Love you…._ Then he couldn’t think anymore. Could only be one with the moment. One with his Slayer.

 

**…**

 

_Best birthday, ever_ , Buffy thought sleepily. She felt good. Loose and satisfied and achy in all the right places and ways. Spike could definitely never be accused of not knowing how to please a woman. The way he moved his hips when he was inside of her, the things he’d done with his hands after she’d untied him…. And, _oh god_ , what he’d done with that wicked, wicked tongue… She shivered in pleasure. According to the Bible, man had been made from dirt. She was pretty sure that Spike had been made from pure sex. And not in the usual way people were made from sex.

She sighed in utter contentment, sliding her thigh between Spike’s to help him get comfortable. She held him close to her – his hands bound together again and tucked between their bodies – and pressed her hand against the small of his back, gently massaging. As sleep tugged at her, she happened to glance down at her feet and let out a sleepy giggle. They were bare. He really _had_ shagged her little pink socks off.

 

 


	24. Chapter 24

Punch. Kick. Block. Counter and spin. High kick. Buffy flowed through the moves as she fought imaginary foes, circling that place of contrasting stillness within her. It was easier with Spike’s help – always tapping out the rhythm of her heart while he either talked her through it or _da-da-da_ ’ed wordless melodies. Sometimes both – but she’d been practicing doing it on her own.

She shifted stances, blocking an enemy on one side while kicking out at another. And she was almost… _there._ Everything was suddenly quiet and still. She could _feel_ herself as the Slayer. A vibrant energy that bubbled within her. Hunter. Killer. Protector. It encompassed and defined who she was while being only a fraction of the whole. _That wanker said he accepted_ both _sides of you?_ Spike’s voice whispered in her mind. _So much more to you than that, Summers. Focus on your facets._ Feel _who you are, not who your mates and your ex_ think _you are._

She felt who she was. She didn’t understand a lot of it, but she _felt_ it. And the piece that was her-not-her. The instinct to protect her child above all else. It was being imposed on her, yet at the same time…. She wanted to protect her little girl. Herself. Like Spike, she had fallen in love with her.

 _This is part of me,_ she thought. _This is inside of me. I control this. I control me._

Someone came into the training room, and she let the trance go, turning to greet Ben with a smile. It was earlier in the day than her usual therapy sessions, but it was Valentine’s day, and she had plans. Sexy “I have a boyfriend and my mom is away on her first buying trip after surgery” plans.

Ben smiled back at her. “Looks like the meditation is helping a lot.”

“It really has been,” she said, starting to pace. She felt energized, like she just needed to _move_.

“Does it always make you this hyper?” he asked, following her movement with his eyes.

“Oh, uh, no, actually, not usually.” She forced herself to be still. “I’m just kind of excited about tonight. I’m taking Spike to this little place he told me about. And I got him one of those heart-shaped boxes of Russel Stover’s chocolates. I didn’t get flowers, though. Should I get flowers?”

She stopped and frowned slightly in confusion. Huh. All of that, and she actually felt really, powerfully feminine. More than she ever had with Riley, when she’d been the one taken out to dinner and given chocolates and flowers. Kind of weird. Nice, though.

“Everybody likes flowers,” Ben said, sounding amused. “It sounds like it’s going to be an interesting night.”

“I’m probably going to get socks.”

Oh god, she was excited about _Valentine’s day_ socks. That was even weirder than the other stuff. It was true, though. Spike got embarrassed about the baby booties for some reason, and she hadn’t seen him making her socks, but he let her watch whenever he was working on the onesie for the baby. There was something oddly sexy about watching his lovely, talented hands turning plain old yarn into something useful. The thought of him making something specifically for her got her all shivery. In a very good way.

“How are your friends dealing with the way your relationship with Spike is going?”

Buffy winced at Ben’s question, some of her excitement fading away. “I, uh, haven’t actually really _told_ any of my friends, except for Tara. Xander figured it out on his own, and I think Giles is at least suspicious, but I never actually told either of them. I _did_ tell my family.”

She started pacing again, though this time there was some nervousness. She knew she should have told Giles and Willow. As it was, she’d actually asked Tara not to share with Willow. Did that make her a terrible friend? She was still mad at Willow, but she’d set that aside to save the friendship. What if telling her killed it again, to the point where it couldn’t come back? Wouldn’t that make her an even worse friend?

“How did they take it?” She stared at Ben blankly, having lost the trail of the conversation. “Your family,” he clarified.

“Oh. Well, Mom is kind of torn on it. She’s not exactly happy that I’m with a vampire.” _That_ was an understatement. She smiled wryly. “But she can’t exactly use the no fat grandbabies argument with this one, and with said grandbaby on the way, she thinks us dating is better than any other alternative.” And she _had_ specifically timed her buying trip.

“Dawn was kind of freaked out about it, but we explained that it was very definitely consensual on both sides.” It had kind of stung that Dawn had demanded to talk to Spike alone about things, but Buffy understood it. “Poor Dawnie. She’s had to deal with a lot. The way she found about what really happened with the ritual was very much not of the good. And then the whole being a mystical key thing…. Thank God Spike was there to….” She trailed off and frowned at Ben’s expression. His eyes were wide with horrified panic. “Are… are you okay?”

“I… I forgot a meeting. Really important meeting.” He darted out of the training through the back alley door, moving like the hounds of hell were on his tail.

 

**…**

 

Glory blinked, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the alley she’d found herself in. She didn’t know what Ben got up to when he was in control of the body, but sometimes things caught her attention. What had been going on in an alley that had pinged at her subconscious?

Whatever. Couldn’t have been too important. At least, not as important as getting into some decent clothes. Ben had such terrible taste.

 

**…**

 

Buffy glanced at Spike out of the corner of her eye as they headed home. The little hole-in-the-wall place he’d suggested in the really bad part of town had actually turned out to be great and romantic. It had been a fantastic date, but.... Well, Spike seemed nervous about something, and it was only getting worse. It was bad enough now that he was sort of huddled in his coat, and she didn’t think it was to hide the fact that he was roughly the equivalent of seven months pregnant.

Finally, he took a deep breath and pulled a small notebook out of his pocket, thrusting it at her. “Here,” he said gruffly. “No dosh to actually buy you anything. Thought about more socks, but….”

She looked at the notebook, at Spike, then back at the notebook. She opened it up, automatically reading the first entry before she fully realized what she was looking at.

_Golden girl of living fire, burn within and take me higher  
_ _Dance and flow of light and spark, golden girl of living fire._

_Dancing girl with hidden smile, stay with me at least a while  
_ _Whirl and twirl and make ‘em dust, dancing girl with hidden smile._   


_Whirling, twirling warrior true, do their callow eyes see you?  
_ _Slayer mine, you know I do, whirling, twirling warrior true._   


_Slayer, Slayer free and wild, tender girl both fierce and mild  
_ _Golden spirit, mine to see, heart of slayer free and wild_   


_Golden girl of living fire, make me burn and take me higher  
_ _Always yours in light and dark, golden girl of living fire._

_Oh my god,_ she thought, stunned and touched. She’d gotten poetry as a gift before, but that had been Angel giving her someone else’s works. This was a notebook of _Spike’s_ poems. Ones he had written specifically for her. It would have been a sweet, romantic gesture even if that had been all there was to it. He’d finally told her about Cecily and the party he’d been to the night he’d been turned.

Just the admission itself had been a precious gift of trust and knowledge. He’d told her who he had been, fully expecting to be mocked for it. The fact that he’d apparently been a sweet and sensitive man in life had kind of explained a few things about his personality as a vampire, even if he _had_ tried to put it all behind him. He was giving her his heart and trusting her not to rip it to pieces.

“Should have gone with the bloody socks,” Spike muttered, running a hand through his hair in agitation. “Didn’t think they were too bad. Not as bad as when I was human. Got better as a demon, but still not good. Lacked some of what they had before that, you know? Add a soul to the mix, and things sorta settled. Not as bad anymore, but still not good.” Like her, Spike tended to babble when he was nervous. “I’ll burn it for you. Shouldn’t have to bother yourself.”

He tried to grab the notebook from her, but she clutched it to her chest with one arm. Her hand shot out towards his head, her fingers digging into his hair as she dragged him down for a kiss. Words may have failed her at times, but that didn’t mean she was bad at communicating with her mouth. Her lips told him she loved him, while her tongue took the way the gift made her feel and pushed it into him, tip flickering to write her own poetry.

“Give us your purse, bitch!”

Buffy groaned in frustration as she pulled away from the kiss. “Jeez, don’t you have anything better to do?” she asked in annoyance as she turned to face the three “bad-ass” men who had interrupted. “It’s Valentine’s day. Shouldn’t you be trying to impress your badly dressed floozies?”

The man who had spoken – he looked like the evil, fashion-challenged twin of a college football player – frowned at her response and brandished his knife. “I told you to hand over the purse,” he growled. He glanced over at Spike, “And you, tubby, hand over your wallet.”

“Don’t have a wallet,” Spike said. He raised a brow at the thugs. “Also, ‘tubby’? Really?” He looked down at himself, then at her. There was a seductive look in his eyes, and she suddenly found herself wondering if he’d taken her mascara, too. Had his lashes always been that dark and long? “I look tubby to you, Slayer?”

“O-of course not,” Buffy told him. “Just… nicely rounded.”

He smirked. “That so? Much better. Tubby just sounds so… unkempt, don’t it?”

“Stop flirting and give us your money,” one of the other men called out. They both looked a little uneasy, as if suddenly realizing their “prey” wasn’t afraid of them. It had taken them long enough.

Buffy sighed in exasperation. “Okay, let’s get this over with. I have things I can’t even spell to do with my boyfriend.”

She exploded into motion, kicking the knife out of the hand of the apparent leader. _Need to hold back. They’re just humans…. Humans. Shit!_ There was the sound of flesh striking flesh, accompanied by British swear words. Fear choked at her as she whirled around towards the other two men.

Obviously thinking Spike would be the greater threat, they had him backed against a building. He seemed okay, but the ritual and her own desire to protect someone she cared about roared through her. She wasn’t going to kill them, but when she was through, they’d definitely be considering a new line of work.

 

**…**

 

Buffy lay in bed with her head propped up on her hand, gazing down at Spike. Her other hand lazily reached out to gently trace the contours of his face. He looked so peaceful, curled up with Mr. Gordo clutched against his chest and temporarily free of the nightmares that had been plaguing him.

Even with the attempted mugging, it had been a wonderful night. Some positions had gotten really… awkward with the baby in the way, but they’d figured out some fun new ones. She’d managed to wear him out despite the insomnia and relatively (for a vampire) early hour. And now he was asleep, looking sweet and vulnerable.

She swallowed hard and shuddered. Vulnerable…. She didn’t like how much that fit when it came to humans. The muggers hadn’t really hurt him, but they could have. They could have killed him or the baby, and he would have been helpless against them. There had to be _something_ that could be done to keep him safe.

Getting someone to poke around in his brain to remove the chip really didn’t seem like a good idea. What if it left him a vegetable or hurt the baby somehow? What other option was there? Her eyes widened as something occurred to her. The Gem of Amara. It would work perfectly. The only problem was, she would have to talk to Angel.

She bit her lip, weighing the pros and cons. He didn’t seem to actually be using the ring, based on the few times she’d seen him since giving it to him. That meant he’d probably be more willing to give it to her, but he’d want to know why she needed it. _Should have just kept and hidden the stupid thing,_ she thought, frustrated.

She sighed and carefully got out of bed. Spike mumbled something, but didn’t wake up. Good. He so did not need to deal with her talking to Angel. She’d call him and see if she could get him to send Wesley or Cordelia down with the ring. It wasn’t likely, though. He’d want to come himself and demand answers. _Maybe I can meet him halfway? Tell him Mom doesn’t want him in the house?_ It wasn’t even a lie. Her mother wasn’t Angel’s biggest fan.

Number for the Hyperion in hand – she was glad Willow had given her the number months ago, it would have been awkward to try to get it now – Buffy went downstairs to the phone and dialed. When he answered, Angel sounded so oddly distant that she wasn’t sure it was him at first.

“Angel?”

The silence was long enough that she’d started to think he’d dropped the phone. Then he finally answered. “Buffy….”

The longing and possessiveness in his voice sent a shiver through her. She didn’t know how she felt about him, anymore, but there was a part of her…. He’d been her first love. The way she felt about Spike wasn’t going to change that. The burning question of _why couldn’t you love me without a soul?_ wasn’t going to change that.

Those feelings acknowledged, she took a deep breath and resolutely pushed them away. “I need the Gem of Amara. I know you probably have it hidden away for saf-”

“I destroyed it,” he interrupted harshly.

She pulled the phone away from her ear, staring at it incredulously for a moment as if it could transmit her dumbfounded expression to him. “Why the hell did you do that?” she demanded after putting the receiver back against her ear. “If I’d wanted it destroyed, I could have done it myself.”

Destroyed. She couldn’t believe it. Her best way to keep Spike safe, _gone_. Because Angel had destroyed it. Had destroyed something she’d given him. A gift to help him be safe. To let him walk in the sun. _Is there anything he doesn’t destroy?_ she wondered, shying away from the thought even as it flowed through her head.

“Why would you do that?” she asked, though she was pretty sure she could guess. Something about his tortured darkness and how he couldn’t be trusted, and it was either destroy it or commit suicide by lovely dawn vista.

“It was dangerous. I had to destroy it after Spike and his goon tried to torture it away from me.”

It probably wouldn’t have affected her before all of the nights in the same room with Spike, but something about Angel’s tone got to her. He made it sound like Spike had no reason other than evil to do anything at all to him. Considering some of the babbled, incoherent things he’d said to her – both in his dreams and when talking to “Dru” after he’d been tortured – she knew it was more complex than that.

“You don’t really have room to talk, considering some of the things _you_ did to _him_.”

There was another long silence. “I don’t know what Spike has been telling you, but you can’t trust him. That chip doesn’t keep him from lying, you know.”

“Most people don’t lie when they’re yelling in their sleep during nightmares!” she snapped back before she could stop herself.

 _Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!_ She pulled the receiver away from her ear, staring at it in horror. She could hear the distant, muffled sound of Angel demanding an explanation. She slammed the phone down, knowing arguing with him was futile. _Shit, shit, shit._ He would be here in a couple of hours. No doubt about it. Willow and Tara were probably off together having a fantastic Valentine’s somewhere, so there wasn’t much hope of doing a disinvite. _Shit, shit, shit._

Buffy took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. She could handle this. Angel would show up. She’d go outside, talk to him, and make him go away, all before Spike woke up. Hopefully. She bit her lip and looked around the house. It was a little messy. She kept promising her mom she would clean. Right. Okay. She couldn’t do anything about Angel, but at least she could fix up the place. And grab a shower. A shower would be very much of the good, if she was going to be dealing with Angel.

As she put her plan – such as it was – into motion, she couldn’t help thinking of how Riley had reacted to Angel being in town. Spike was nothing like the ex-commando, but he had his insecurities when it came to Angel. Valid ones, considering Drusilla. _Angel is my past,_ she thought resolutely, the little girl in her heart keening in agony. _Spike is my future, and I won’t let him be damaged by this. I won’t._

_Even if I have to hurt Angel._


	25. Chapter 25

It had been a while since Angel had last seen 1630 Revello Drive. It looked pretty much the same. The girl inside though…. He clenched his fists, remembering the phone call that had sent him out here – driving fifteen miles over the speed limit the entire way – when he should have been trying to figure out Darla and Drusilla’s plans. It had sounded like Buffy was sleeping with Spike. Like Dru’s idiot brat was her boyfriend now instead of Soldier Boy.

 _What did you do to her, Spike?_ he wondered, feeling sick. He knew the younger vampire didn’t have a thrall ability like the Master or Dru. He didn’t really need one. As much as Angel hated to admit it, Spike had a sort of rough charisma and could charm the underwear off of a nun with just a look and a couple of words. That wouldn’t have been enough to snare Buffy, though. She was too innocent and pure to be corrupted like that. Maybe a spell? He knew Spike had dabbled in magic a few times in the past.

Of course, standing around thinking about things wasn’t getting him any closer to rescuing Buffy. He strode purposefully forward and grabbed the knob, frowning slightly at the resistance. Locked. Not really a problem for him. He forced the door open and stepped inside. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d expected – maybe a passionate kiss or a tearful hug – but Buffy staring at him in dumbfounded horror with a broom in her hand definitely wasn’t it.

“My god, what _is_ it with overbearing control freaks _breaking into my house_? Do you not know how to _knock_?” She advanced towards him, broom held up like a weapon, as he walked farther into the house. She whacked him in the face with the brush end. “Get out!” she insisted in a forceful whisper. “You’re getting your smell everywhere.”

“Buffy –” She whacked him in the face again before he could say anything more. What the hell was going on? Was the spell she was under making her act like this?

“Out!” She was still whisper yelling while glancing worriedly towards the stairs.

Was Spike up there? Angel could smell him pretty heavily in the house, as if he’d been for at least a week. Maybe more. There was something… off about the scent. It probably wasn’t anything important, though. The important thing was saving Buffy.

“Buffy, it’s going to be okay,” he said, keeping his voice low and soothing. “I’m here now. I can handle Spike and fix whatever it is he’s done to you.” Instead of reassuring her, his words seemed to make her angry.

“Why does everyone always assume _he’s_ the one who did something to _me_?” she muttered, blocking him as he tried for the stairs and whacking at him again with the broom.

He tried to grab it away from her, but only succeeded in breaking the brush off from the handle. A horrifying thought occurred to him. What if it _wasn’t_ a spell? Where were Joyce and Dawn? Did Spike have them locked away? Was he forcing Buffy to sleep with him to keep them safe? _I’m going to kill him,_ he thought grimly. Rip him to _shreds_.

“Where’s your family?” he asked urgently. “Where is....” Crap. What had that military doofus’s name been again? “Riley? Why hasn’t anyone done something about this? Did Spike hire someone to kidnap them?”

“Stay away from the stairs and keep your voice down,” she hissed. “I swear to god, if you wake him up, I’m going to rip your spleen out through your nose and make you wear it as a diaper.”

Angel’s jaw dropped at the graphic threat, and he staggered back a few steps as Buffy thumped him in the chest with the broom handle. “Buffy,” he said quietly, trying to get through to her with the power of his love. Shadows joined the anger in her eyes, and her next thump was weaker than the one before. “Please, just talk to me, okay?”

She hit him with the broom handle again, driving him outside. She followed him out and closed the door behind them. “You wanna talk? Okay, talk. Explain why you came here when I’m pretty sure I’ve made it clear that Sunnydale is _my_ turf.”

Her hands were shaking slightly, but she seemed to have softened towards him now that he wasn’t in the house. What the hell had Spike _done_ to her to make her react like that to the thought of him being woken up? For that matter, why was he asleep this early in the night? Had Buffy drugged him in an attempt to free herself?

He took a step towards her and reached out to touch her cheek. She flinched away a little, confusion in her eyes. His poor girl. He knew he had to go back to L.A. once he’d fixed things here to deal with the mayhem being caused by Darla and Dru, but part of him wanted to stay. He wanted to be with her, but he knew the attraction between them was just too intense. They’d lose themselves.

He breathed in her scent, knowing it was a mistake even as he did it. The sheer _want_ was overwhelming. Her blood, her body, just _her_. It was more than he could bear. The bloodlust roared through him, and he had to pull away before he vamped out.

“You don’t have to be afraid of him anymore. I’m here now,” he murmured, feeling like a hypocrite even as he said it.

 _I’m a vampire,_ he thought bitterly. Even with a soul, he was still a vampire. He’d always had trouble controlling himself around her.

She sighed, a long, drawn out sound. “I’m not afraid, Angel. Spike is here because I want him here. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

Angel stared at her in disbelief. That wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be true, could it? _This is my fault,_ he realized. He’d left her for her own good, but it had hurt her. That had to be why she’d ended up with Spike. They couldn’t be together, so she’d gone for a related vampire who’d been effectively neutered by the government technology in his head. In a way, it made more sense than Riley, even if the soldier’s build and general look had been similar to his own.

She was still so hung up on him, going from Riley – a physical substitute – to Spike, who could be considered his grandson. That feeling of family had always stayed Angel’s hand in the past. Spike belonged to him, in a way, which was why he’d always let him walk – or swim, or ride – away whenever they crossed paths. It was why he’d tried to convince Dru to take Spike and leave Sunnydale early in their first visit. It was even the main reason he’d stopped Buffy from staking Spike in her kitchen after her friends had been kidnapped.

 _No more leniency,_ he thought grimly, clenching his fists. He couldn’t be with Buffy, but he could protect her from her own terrible mistakes. He forced himself to put aside the feelings of family and fondness. Feelings he didn’t like to admit to, but couldn’t deny. For Buffy, though, he would finally put an end to Spike.

 

**…**

 

Buffy had known it would be bad, but she hadn’t really been prepared for how bad. She’d forgotten – _Or never really let myself notice_ – how condescending Angel could be. She’d always seen it as romantic protectiveness and a sharing of wisdom gained through life experience. But looking at him through more mature eyes, there was still an attraction. Part of her – the part that still desperately wanted to be a child – longed to throw herself into his arms.

“What happened with Riley?” Angel asked, contempt in his voice. She couldn’t really fault him for that. “I didn’t like him, but at least he was _normal_.”

The word stabbed at her. Normal. She was starting to hate that word. “Yeah, well, I kinda ended up agreeing with you there,” she muttered. He didn’t even seem to be listening.

“You and Spike….” He shook his head in disgust. “Why, Buffy? Why _Spike_? You _are_ sleeping with him, aren’t you? How else did you know what he says in his sleep?” He paused, suddenly looking hopeful. “Unless you’re keeping him locked up again and can’t use Giles’s bathtub for some reason.”

She looked away, unable to answer. She wasn’t ashamed of how she felt about Spike, but it felt… _wrong_ to talk to Angel about it.

He shook his head with a sad sort of weariness, like she was a small child who had made a horrible mistake and wouldn’t listen to him. “You and Spike together is even more of a disaster than the two of us. You _know_ what he’s like. Selfish and reckless. He’ll always put his own twisted wants and desires above yours.”

She stared at him incredulously. He was Spike’s grandsire and had spent at least two decades with him from what she’d heard. He sounded like he didn’t even know him at all. Even when they’d been enemies, Buffy had known Spike would do all he could for someone he loved. Using that fact was how she’d escaped that basement with the crazy vampire admiration cult. It was part of why Spike had come to her to help save the world. Her eyes narrowed. Did Angel really believe what he was saying, or was he just trying to badmouth a boyfriend he didn’t approve of?

“Gee, that doesn’t sound familiar at all,” she muttered sarcastically.

“He’ll never be able to give you the normal life he you need,” he rattled on as if she hadn’t spoken. “No kids and long sunlit walks with an undead lover, Buffy.”

She fought back hysterical laughter. No kids, huh? Then the rest of what he’d said started to register. She remembered when he’d called their relationship a freak show. It had hurt then, and calling it a disaster hurt now. _It was one, though, and you know it,_ she thought, feeling sick. She also felt... angry. How _dare_ he show up here like he had any right to poke his nose into her life? How dare he pass judgement on her relationships? She wasn’t his girlfriend, or daughter, or property.

“You have to let this go,” he said, his voice suddenly earnest, like all he wanted was what was best for her.

“Let _what_ go?” she snapped.

“Us. Me. Riley couldn’t be what you needed even though he had some things in common with me. But jumping onto Spike….” He shook his head. “It’ll never be what we were. You can’t turn him into me.”

“What?” Buffy said flatly, not quite able to believe what she was hearing.

“Think about it. A vampire who can’t hurt anyone. That has to remind you of me. You have to let it go, Buffy. Just… move on.”

Let it go? Move on? _He_ was telling _her_ to let it go and move on? Her grip tightened on the broom handle, drawing his attention. He looked a little uneasy, as if he’d just realized he’d created a really long stake by breaking off the brush. She wasn’t exactly happy with him right now, but…. God, it was almost funny, in a horrifyingly awful way. Her ex constantly checking up on her and hating all of her boyfriends even while telling her that _she_ was the one who needed to let go and move on.

“Go home, Angel,” she said, her voice low and even.

“I’m here to _save_ you. Even if only from yourself and whatever’s wrong with you.”

It was the final straw. She wasn’t going to take any more of this. She advanced towards him, shaking with rage. She was so _sick_ of people telling her what and who she was supposed to be. She lifted the broom handle and thumped him with it.

“Okay, that’s it. You know what? I don’t need to be saved, Angel. The only thing ‘wrong’ with me is that I’ve grown up. Maybe you should try it someday.” She thumped him again. “You need to try something, because this thing you’ve been doing? The stalking and getting pissy if I’m with someone? Really not working for me.” Thump. “You have no say in my love life.” Thump. “You dumped me, remember? But not until _after_ begging me not to give up on our relationship.” She whacked him hard, driving him towards the road. “Just go away, Angel. I don’t need you.”

Angel stared at her, looking like a beached fish. God, it was so satisfying to feel like she was the one in control. Then he looked beyond her, his handsome face squinching in confused rage. Buffy’s heart sank as she turned, already knowing what she would see. Spike, standing in the doorway, watching them. Given the slight smirk, he had apparently heard her rant, which was a relief. He was less likely to think she was planning to fall into Angel’s arms.

The relief she felt was short lived. With a savage roar, Angel vamped out and launched himself at Spike.

 

**…**

 

_One moment she was in his arms, sweet and warm. The next, he was gone, snatched away by Angel. He watched as they snuggled, his grandsire and his slayer. She looked so happy, practically glowing._

_Angel smiled at him condescendingly. “Thanks for taking care of my girls. You always do such a good job, but in the end, they’re always mine. They start out as mine, and end as mine. Even this one.” Angel looked down suddenly at the swaddled form in his arms. “Hey there, Angela. Mommy and Daddy are here.”_

_Spike looked down. He’d never thought he’d be sick and horrified by the sight of himself actually looking like himself. No, no, no! Thursday was_ his _! Buffy being with that wanker hurt, but this…._

_Buffy giggled vapidly and looked at the baby. “Oooh,” she cooed. “She has your eyes, Angel! And your beautiful face.”_

_She held up the baby so Spike could see. Angel’s head, full-sized, was on the tiny body. It grinned and winked at him. “Hey, Spike. Thanks for the incubation,” it said. “Good boy”_

Spike’s eyes snapped open as he shuddered in revulsion. He mentally took stock. Back pain? Check. Achy joints? Also a check. Feeling as ungainly as a bloody sea cow? Abso-sodding-lutely. _Thank god._ He shook his head and snorted at himself. Never thought he’d wake up quite so grateful to still be pregnant. Seemed like it should have been reversed, but he always did tend to be a bit contrary, didn’t he?

 _That was a bit of a kick to the goolies, now wasn’t it?_ God, the dream had seemed so real. _Coulda sworn I really did smell good ol’ gramps._ He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, expecting to get a good whiff of Slayer. He did, but her intoxicating scent was mingled with the taint of Angel’s.

His eyes snapped open and he struggled out of the bed. Bloody buggering hell. What was the poofter doing here? He pulled his clothes on, including his coat. He didn’t wear it much around the house itself, but sod all if he was going to face Angel without his armor.

He headed down the stairs. The scents of both Buffy and his grandsire were strong, but there was no sign of them. He opened the front door to see her whacking at the pillock with a stick like an oversized piñata. Huh. Well, that was a bit of alright, wasn’t it? Except…. He shifted uneasily. She loved the wanker. Had to be bad news if she was hitting him with wood.  Had he discovered a mirror that worked for vampires, sending his magical, detachable soul off on walkabout again?

He listened to the Slayer’s rant as she backed Angel towards the road. He had no idea why the git was there, but it didn’t seem like a missing soul situation. Thank god for that. _Sounds like he just showed up and was his usual insufferable self._ He leaned against the door, smirking slightly as he got the gist of what she was saying.

“Just go away, Angel. I don’t need you.”

 _You tell ‘im, Slayer,_ he thought in admiration. It stung the soul a bit to rile her up _too_ much, but she was so gorgeous when she was brassed off.  Of course, then the bloody wanker had to up and ruin the moment by glancing his way. With a roar, Angel put on his gameface and lunged.

 _Oh bloody hell,_ Spike thought in dismay. Normally he’d be more than willing to throw down with the older vampire, but not now. He was nowhere near at his best, and this was going to put the sprog in serious danger.

He dodged as Angel threw a punch, and managed one of his own. Then the walking forehead brought up his knee in a powerful strike towards Spike’s middle. He cursed and threw himself backwards, the blow only grazing him. He tripped and ended up sprawled on his back in the doorway, his sweater riding up. Angel stared down at him in utter bewilderment for a moment before being tackled from the side by a furiously snarling slayer.

She took Angel down to the ground and pounded his face with a short and brutal series of punches. Then she rose, a beautiful golden Valkyrie, eyes and hair wild as she rushed to Spike’s side and knelt beside him.

“Are you okay?” she asked as he sat up, her voice breathy with panic. She ran her hands over him to reassure herself even as he waved away her concern.

“Fine. Feel like a right bloody ponce for tripping over my own sodding feet in the middle of a fight, but I’m fine.”

He winced slightly as Thursday let out a kick of protest over all of the excitement. Buffy, her hand pressed firmly against his abdomen, suddenly grinned, going from avenging fury to expectant parent. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt the sprog kick, but it always reduced her to that adorably goofy grin.

“Wha’ th’ hell?” Angel mumbled as he struggled to his feet. He was back to looking human, or relatively so. His nose was broken and one eye a swollen mess. “Wahs go’ on?” He grunted as he fixed his nose and spat out blood. “I dink… I hab…  ride to… dow,” he panted.

 _No, you bloody_ don’t _,_ Spike thought, glaring at him in annoyed resentment as the joy drained from Buffy’s face. She looked tired and heart sore, and Spike really wanted to have a go at the wanker for doing that to her. He knew better, though. Getting into a row with Angel would just cause her pain.

She kept her gaze locked on his as she responded to her ex. “No, Angel, you don’t. This is between me and Spike. You don’t belong here. You aren’t part of this.”

“Is he…? He _can’t_ be….” Angel’s expression went from confused disbelief to jealousy to bewilderment before finally settling into a carefully stony mask. The swelling around his nose was already starting to fade, leaving him speaking better. “Who’s the father?”

Buffy’s shoulders slumped as she sighed. She gave Spike a look that was both apologetic and questioning. He sighed as well.

“Might as well give him the basics, love. The biggest cats are all out of the bag anyhow, and he’s just gonna nag if he don’t get a few answers.”

She nodded and stood up, turning to face Angel with a look of determination. “I am,” she said, head held up proudly. He knew she hated what had happened to the both of them because of the ritual, but she didn’t seem ashamed of either the sprog or him. “There was this.... It’s complicated….” She took a deep breath. “None of this is really any of your business. The baby is mine and Spike’s, and I’ll kick your ass if you attack him again. That’s more than you even deserve to know. Go home.”

“Buffy... I don’t know how he’s convinced you that… _thing_ is yours, but we need to destroy it.”

Buffy stiffened at Angel’s word, and Spike pulled his coat tighter around himself, as if it could somehow protect the sprog. Who knew, maybe it could. It had belonged to a mother once.

“I will rip your arms off and beat you with them before I let you harm my child,” she said, her voice deadly serious.

“Spike is dead and _male_. There’s no way this is natural or normal,” Angel pointed out as if they were too stupid to have realized that themselves. “I know it feels like it’s your kid somehow, but it really isn’t. It probably isn’t actually even Spike’s either. There was this one time, when Cordelia…” He paused, shaking his head. “The details aren’t important, but she thought some evil, parasitic _things_ growing inside of her were her babies.”

Buffy sighed, and Spike could tell, even with her facing away from him, that she was rolling her eyes. “You have no idea what’s been going on here, Angel. I told you, the baby is mine and Spike’s. This is not an assumption, it’s a _fact_. The baby is ours, and we’re keeping it.”

“Damn it, Buffy! It probably doesn’t even have a soul! It’s evil!”

“Not any of your soddin’ business, but the sprog _does_ have a soul,” Spike pointed out irritably. God, he was tired. Tired of dealing with Angel and just tired in general. Everything seemed to take so much effort these days, and sleep had become a game of chase the sodding magic dragon. And when he caught it…. Well, bloody thing had _teeth_ didn’t it?

“Even if she didn’t have a soul, she’d still be my daughter, and I’d still love her,” Buffy said quietly. “I still wouldn’t let you kill her.” She sighed, sounding almost as tired as he felt. “You need to go home, Angel.”

Angel looked like he’d been smacked in the face with a trout. “Buffy,” he said pleadingly.

“I’m sorry, Angel. Part of me still loves you. It always will.” She glanced apologetically at Spike as she spoke, but he nodded in understanding. He didn’t like it, but he knew it was true. Just like part of him would always love Dru. “But you aren’t a part of my life anymore. Just… let it go. Move on.”

Angel stared at them for a long moment. “You’re making a terrible mistake, Buffy. I don’t know why you think it has a soul, but when that _thing_ turns on you….” He shook his head. “It will, you know. So will Spike. And maybe I won’t be here to save you.” Then he turned around and walked away.

Buffy didn’t watch him leave. Didn’t sigh after him with suppressed longing. No, she just turned back towards Spike and smiled, holding out her hand to help him get to his feet. “Come on,” she said softly. “Let’s go back to bed.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some scenes and dialogue taken from the episode Checkpoint

Giles stared blankly at the book in front of him. _We know what your slayer has been up to. We are on our way._ Those words, spoken over the phone this morning, circled through his mind. They did not bode well. The Council had ignored his requests for information, then had summarily summoned him back to England to essentially say they knew nothing. Now this. An impending visit from the Council. A coming invasion of privacy that he had yet to inform Buffy of.

He looked across the table at her. Like most of the others, she was busily researching the key. The only full exceptions were Anya – who was manning the cash register – and Spike, who was sitting with his feet propped up on the research table, knitting what appeared to be a baby blanket. It was an appalling breach in etiquette, but at this stage of things, they had all silently agreed to let the temporarily souled vampire do whatever the bloody hell he pleased.

Those were the full exceptions. The partial one…. Well, that was himself. He guiltily pushed away the book on nameless primordial evils and resumed reading one of the tomes he had… “acquired” during his trip to England. What he’d discovered so far was most definitely not a comfort. Slayers who lived past their eighteenth birthdays tended to experience a sort of… sexual awakening. They either slept with multiple human partners or found someone with supernatural strength and endurance.

He glanced at Buffy again and at the vampire by her side, his lips compressing in a tight line. Confirmation of their relationship had come not from Buffy, but from Angel roughly two weeks ago. Despite that, slamming the door in his face after icily assuring him that everything was well in hand had been deeply satisfying.

 _Bloody pillock, trying to throw his weight around. As if we hadn’t already thoroughly researched something as peculiar as Spike’s current condition._ The child was just a child, brought about by a ritual intended as nothing more than a means of procreation. There were no dark portents or malfeasance involved. The identity of the “mother” may have been less than ideal, but that was hardly the child’s fault. It had a soul, which made it no more likely to fall to evil than the average superpowered being.

Giles sighed internally and stared down at the book. Given the information it contained, he had to reluctantly agree with Buffy’s choice in paramours. With the chip in place, Spike was relatively harmless. He had also endeavored towards good even before the soul had begun affecting him. Giles wasn’t exactly happy, but he would be accepting. Perhaps that acceptance would help the vampire to continue on the straight and narrow path once the child had been born. Only time would tell.

 

**…**

 

Research had never been Buffy’s strong suit, but she was finding it particularly hard today. _Shouldn’t have worn a bra today_ , she thought, fighting not to tug and fuss with the offending garment. It was one of the larger ones she’d bought recently, but it was still uncomfortable.

The herbs Tara had given her really did work, and now her breasts were swollen and tender and she had actually started producing milk. She still needed to do the stimulation, and Spike was still helping her, which had made her feel self-conscious at first, like she should have thought it was weird and wrong somehow. Both Ben – who had been strangely twitchy and distracted lately – and Tara had assured her that it was actually a good thing, since her breast milk was full of all kinds of good things that the baby needed. The fact that Spike was drinking it to help her make more was no weirder than people drinking cow milk. Really.

Perfectly normal. And also incredibly intimate. It made her feel protective and motherly. Ben had said something about oxytocin. Whatever it was, it was powerful. If Angel showed up again, she was pretty sure she’d hurt him a hell of a lot more than she had before, and it had very little to do with the instincts from the ritual.

She glanced over at Spike. He was the other reason she was having a hard time focusing on research, and not just because of the urge to hold and cuddle him. He should have been at home, resting – especially since it was daytime – but he’d insisted on coming, using a comforter thrown over himself for protection from the sun on the way to the sewer entrance near her house. He was moving slower these days, and probably would have caught on fire with his usual thin, ratty blanket.

He’d grumbled something about being “bloody useless” but could at least be there as moral support for Dawn. The girl was sitting on the other side of him, focused intently on the book in front of her. She was actually pretty good at the whole research thing. It had to be hard on her, though. Constantly being reminded that she wasn’t what she had always thought she was.

Buffy could sort of relate. It had to be like when she’d found out she was the Slayer, though not quite. _I’ve always been human, and still am. Dawn wasn’t, until the monks made her one._

Buffy’s thoughts were interrupted by seven people arriving all together, five men and two women. One of the men was upsettingly familiar. Quentin Travers. _This is so very not of the good,_ she thought with a sinking feeling. She wanted to hide Spike and Dawn away, but that would only draw more attention to them.

And speaking of attention…. One of the women was staring at Spike, her gaze traveling along his bare legs to the edge of the kilt as if hoping his feet-propped-up position would make it slide down and reveal the goodies. _Those are_ my _goodies, bitch,_ she thought, eyes narrowing.

Theoretically, the Council was supposed to be her support system. They were supposed to be there for her, to give her the knowledge and guidance she needed to survive as long as she could. Despite that, Buffy really didn’t want them there, and not just because of the woman who couldn’t keep her eyes to herself.

So far, all of her interactions with the Council had led to them nearly killing her. Being killed was _so_ not on her agenda right now. Neither was letting them hurt Dawn, Spike, or the baby. She didn’t know why they were suddenly here, but she wasn’t going to let them run roughshod over the people she loved. She’d do whatever she could to protect them.

 

**…**

 

 _Bloody hell,_ Spike thought in irritation. _Dropped a stitch._ He fixed the problem, all the while keeping a surreptitious eye on the Watchers. The head honcho of the lot began wandering the store, sneering as if the place were literally full of crap instead of just figuratively. His scent and heartbeat indicated a man who was confident and full of himself. His fawning underlings had much the same feel to them, only somewhat muted.

The she-watcher with the roving eye – taking her cue from her boss – inspected a shelf, looking at a two-foot-tall statue in distaste. Couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but something about the bird made his skin crawl. She picked up the statue and headed towards the man in charge.

“This statue’s removal from Burma is a criminal offence,” she said as she handed it over. “And when triggered, it has the power to melt human eyeballs.”

“Weirdly specific, innit?” Spike muttered.

Why would there be a statue specifically for melting human eyeballs? Seemed a bit fishy and made up, that. ‘Course, could have just been a lack of correct information. From what he’d been told, these council wankers thought he was two-hundred and had attributed some of Angelus’s atrocities to him during that eighty or so years that he hadn’t actually existed. God knew he’d done more than his fair share of vile, horrible things – that he’d no doubt be right proud of again after the sprog was born – but he’d never really been into all of that artistry crap Angelus had always been on about.

God, the whole soul thing was confusing. He was both looking forward to and dreading it being gone. The feelings of sick horror and guilt over his own memories? Not exactly pleasant, though talking with Ben had been helping. On the other hand, he felt more… _complete_ than he ever had, even when alive. _Like the demon brought out somethin’ missing in me…._

“Oh come on,” Xander scoffed, pulling Spike out of his existential musings. “Who _hasn’t_ woken up with a yen for a bit of eyeball meltage? If I’d had something like that in high school, there would have been a lot of jocks in need of seeing eye dogs.”

The invaders from across the pond all looked at the boy like he’d taken a crap on a picture of the Queen. Added a bit more humor to the comment, and Spike found himself smiling slightly, despite the situation. Boring, stiff bunch of sods, weren’t they? And they were making Buffy unhappy. Bloody wankers.

One of said wankers strode to the middle of the store. “Magic Box shoppers!” he called out loudly. “We’re going to have to ask you to leave. The store is closing early today.”

While he made his announcement, the other watchers who weren’t the boss began taking away the things customers had already picked out and shooing them out the door. Anya watched from the checkout counter with a horrified dismay that Spike would have found funny if he didn’t actually like the girl.

“Wh-what are you doing?” the ex-vengeance demon cried out in alarm. “Giles, stop them!” She looked from Giles to the door. “Customers, please bring back your money!”

“What is the meaning of this, Travers?” Giles demanded once all of the customers were gone.

“You _were_ informed that we were coming,” Travers said blandly.

The look of absolute betrayal on the Slayer’s face was a devastating stab to his unbeating heart, even if it wasn’t aimed at him. He carefully set the knitting aside and pulled his feet off the table – hiding a wince because it was bloody difficult to give off an aura of menace if everyone knew your back and feet hurt like a wicked bitch – before standing up to shoot a narrow-eyed glare at Giles.

“You _knew_ these wankers were coming, and you didn’t tell Buffy?”

Never could trust a father figure type, could you? They always betrayed and abandoned you in the end, after trying to shape you into what they wanted you to be. _Not gonna be that way with us, Thursday,_ he thought. _You’re mine, and I’m gonna do right by you._

Giles answered his glare with a withering look before focusing on Buffy. “They only rang this morning and neglected to mention they were already in town. They arrived before I had an opportunity to speak with you.”

“It’s alright Giles,” Buffy said, lightly tugging at Spike to get him to sit back down.

Since she seemed to believe her watcher, he grudgingly did too. It did seem like the sort of dick move they’d make. He sank back down into the chair, wishing it wasn’t so bloody uncomfortable. Buffy scooted her own chair closer and slid her hand under his sweater, kneading the small of his back.

The more active of the two female watchers was _looking_ at him again. He didn’t like that look. It was the repressed Englishwoman version of “you’re a nummy treat I would like to slowly devour.” He didn’t understand his reaction to it. Normally, he’d flirt with the bint, lead her on a bit. Before the bloody chip and the soul, he would have seduced her. Had her follow him into a dark, quiet place before eating her.

Huh. That seemed to be part of it, now he thought on it. He wasn’t comfortable thinking of her as prey. Sodding soul made her an actual _person_ , even though he didn’t know her. He frowned. That wasn’t all of it, though. The thought of feeding on her felt almost like… cheating. Something he’d never felt when he was with Dru.

She had been his everything, but she hadn’t been a food source. He’d been taking his regular dose of slayer straight from the tap lately. The thought of drinking blood from another girl just didn’t sit right with him at the moment. Not when he was having trouble thinking of humans as just food.

More of them were looking at him now, including Travers. He was radiating that special sort of disgusted disapproval that made one come across as severely constipated. “We discovered information concerning the Dagon Sphere and the creature it’s meant to repel. However, some rather disturbing things about the slayer’s recent questionable activities have also come to light,” the man said. “We feel a review is necessary to determine if she can be trusted with the information we have.”

“Questionable active-”

Buffy broke off her incredulous repetition midword as one of the watchers calmly opened up a briefcase and pulled out a crossbow. He proceeded to load and point it at Spike while the others – except for Travers – pulled crosses from their pockets. _Bloody hell,_ Spike thought, tensing. He couldn’t fight the sods, and he couldn’t even properly scarper, either. He’d gone from sea cow to beached whale on the ungainliness scale, which was not exactly conducive to making a fast getaway.

_Bugger._

 

**…**

 

Buffy held absolutely still, the crossbow pointed at Spike both stirring her protective instincts – the ones from the ritual and the ones that were just her wanting to protect someone she loved – and holding them in check. Travers smiled like a snake getting ready to eat a bird. Buffy had never wanted to hit anyone as much as she wanted to hit him right now.

 _He’s in his sixties, and he’s human. Hitting him would be very bad,_ she told herself grimly. Besides, it would probably lead to Spike being pincushioned and then fitting in an ashtray. Her instincts howled at her. _Kill, kill, kill. Destroy them all before they do something to the baby._ She kept her gaze locked on the crossbow. It grounded her while also making things worse.

When Travers spoke, his words were aimed at Giles rather than her. “We’ve heard that the slayer’s… _pet_ has been rendered harmless to humans, but there’s no need to take chances, is there?” He sighed and shook his head. “Really, Giles, I had expected better of you. Not only did you fail to stop the slayer’s behavior, you actively helped her with it. You covered your tracks well, but your colleague, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce, was rather ham-handed in his own research into the So’voriku fertility ritual, which led us to yours.”

Buffy stared at him, stunned. Mr. Wyndam-Pryce? That… that was _Wesley_ wasn’t it? How the hell had _Wesley_ found out about the ritual? _Angel,_ she realized. Angel had to have told him. Except… how had Angel found out about the ritual? Her eyes met Willow’s on the other side of the research table. She didn’t know the specifics, but the redhead’s guilty look gave her the gist of it.

 _I should have known,_ she thought in disgusted anger. There was no way Angel would have just walked away. He had gone behind her back to her friends. _Again._ And her friends had kept it from her. Again. Well, maybe not all of them. She didn’t think Tara had had anything to do with Willow spilling the beans, and Xander looked kind of clueless at the moment.

“What exactly is it you believe Buffy has done?” Giles asked, a sliver of the steel he kept so carefully velvetted coming through.

“The slayer is cohabitating with a vampire after using the So’voriku ritual to use the creature as a means of procreation,” one of the cross-wielding watchers said in disgust.

Buffy slowly and deliberately stood up. The crossbowman’s trigger finger twitched, but he didn’t fire. How _dare_ the council just show up like this and pass judgement on something they had just _decided_ she had done? She casually picked up two books, then threw them in rapid succession, the first intercepting the bolt and the second knocking the crossbow from the man’s hand.

Buffy was on him before anyone had time to react, twisting his arm behind his back and slamming his head down on the table between Willow and Tara. Both witches squeaked in surprise before scooting away.

“Giles, control your slayer!” Travers snapped.

“Sorry, old chap, but I don’t actually work for you,” Giles said mildly. “You fired me, remember?”

Buffy was only barely paying attention. They kept calling her the slayer, but it was like they thought she was just a nameless and unimportant weapon. Just a _thing_. And a disposable one at that. The man whimpered in pain as she put a little more pressure on his head. It would be so easy to crush it. Part of her wanted to. He had threatened her baby.

“Slayer.”

The word brought her back to herself. When they’d been enemies, Spike had mocked her numerous times – he still did a bit, though it was teasing now – but he also respected her as a warrior. When he called her slayer, it was a title, not a label. She was the Slayer. Chosen One, the. She met Spike’s eyes, sending wordless thanks for the reminder of who she was.

He nodded very slightly, then flicked a glance towards Dawn and raised a brow at her. She could almost hear his voice in her head. _Still gotta get the info on the little bit, yeah?_ Buffy gave her own little nod before easing up on the watcher. She helped him upright, but kept his arm behind his back.

“Okay, listen up,” she said, focusing on Travers. “We’re not doing this. No review, no poking your noses into my personal life, and no withholding information.”

“Now see here,” one of the men spluttered in indignation. “This, this is intolera-”

Buffy didn’t even look at him. She kept her gaze fixed on Travers as she tightened her grip on his minion’s arm. The man’s scream cut off the squawking of his fellow minion.

“No interruptions,” she said coldly. “I want to make something perfectly clear. I. Don’t. _Need_. You. I kicked you and your Council out of my life back in high school, and you know what? I’m still the Slayer. I don’t need you to be what I am, but without me? You’re just a bunch of academics twiddling your thumbs with nothing to do. I’m the Slayer. I’m not your tool. You exist to make my job easier. If anything, that makes you _my_ tools.”

She released the crossbowman and let her gaze sweep over them all before returning to Travers. She seemed to have gotten their attention at least. “This is how things are going to be. If you have a problem with it, then you can go home and find another job. Giles will be reinstated as my official watcher with his salary restored –”

“Retroactively,” Giles said, trying to hide it behind a cough.

“Retroactively,” Buffy added. He deserved the pay. Her eyes narrowed. Deserved the pay. “I will be getting a salary, too. Equal to that of an active field watcher.” The interrupter looked like he wanted to say something. Didn’t like her terms, huh? He’d hate this. “You will also set up a college fund for Dawn and my kid. And if you _ever_ threaten my daughter again, I’ll go to England and raze your precious Council headquarters to the ground. Do I make myself clear?”

“This is outrageous!”

Travers held up his hand for quiet before Buffy could react. He studied her for a long moment before slowly nodding. “Your terms are acceptable.”

Relief and satisfaction flooded through Buffy. One battle down. Things were looking up.

 

**…**

 

Glory smiled, smug and confident as her minions scurried off. Good old Benjie had messed up, and now she knew that the key was a person. She already knew that the slayer was connected to it in some way. Her little toadies just had to find someone new in the girl’s circle, and she would finally have her key. Things were definitely looking up.


	27. Chapter 27

Dawn trudged down the stairs with the cleaning supplies, not sure if she was glad about Spike’s weird cleaning obsession or annoyed by it. On the one hand, it was a very welcome distraction from her thoughts, but on the other, she’d just spent an hour cleaning the bathroom, a chore Buffy had unfairly gotten out of by citing a need to patrol. _I don’t care what Mom says,_ she thought, _wanting to make sure the grout and behind the toilet are squeaky clean is_ not _normal._

Normal. Like she had any idea what normal actually was. There was a hellgod after her, and she was some kind of key that had been molded into human shape. She wasn’t even a real person. All of her memories of normal were fake. She’d never lived in L.A. with her mother and father. Her “normal” had started with living on a Hellmouth and knowing her sister was the Slayer.

She sighed and glanced into the living room, frowning at the empty couch. Spike was supposed to be resting while she cleaned and Mom bought the canned goods and pure white baby things he seemed to think they needed. Because babies apparently shriveled up and died if they weren’t swaddled in things that had been bleached as much as Spike’s hair.

She put the supplies away in the utility closet and followed the sound of irritated mutters to the kitchen. Spike was on his knees in front of the stove, swiping the new broom under it. Dawn just stared for a moment, trying to decide where exactly the sight fit on the weirdness scale. Kind of far down, actually, considering everything that had happened in the past few months.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to be doing that,” she commented. “Mom told you to rest.”

“Yeah, well, your mum is nice and all, but she’s not the boss of me,” he muttered, dropping down even lower to check his work. “Guess that’ll have to do for now.”

He grunted as he got to his feet, his usual predatory grace pretty much completely gone by this point. His back and joints were obviously bothering him, but he was looking around the clean kitchen like it was a bug-infested hotbed of filth that he had to defeat.

Dawn rolled her eyes in exasperation. This nesting behavior thing was _so_ annoying. Why couldn’t he just shred newspapers like a cat? That would at least be adorable. She sighed and filled a plate with some of the chocolate chip cookies her mom had made earlier. Maybe they’d be enough to tempt him into sitting down for a little bit.

“Here,” she said, thrusting the plate at him. “You take those to the couch. I’ll bring a couple glasses of milk, and we’ll both have a snack break, okay?”

He eyed the kitchen again, but nodded and took the plate. “Could do with a bit of a break,” he admitted grudgingly.

By the time she got the milk poured – one glass of skim and the other whole – he was already sitting on the couch with the TV on. She sat down beside him and handed him his glass before taking a cookie.

“Mom always liked to bake cookies as comfort food.”

They were both a comfort to bake and to eat. Dawn thought of all of the cookies she remembered eating around the time of the divorce. She remembered it, but it hadn’t actually happened. Well, the divorce had, and probably the cookies too, but it had just been Mom and Buffy eating them.

It was so weird to think about. According to what the monk had told Buffy and Spike, she had been nothing but energy at some point. Had she been good, bad, neutral? A hellgod was after her. What did that mean?

“Am… am I evil?” she asked. If anyone would know, it would be Spike, right?

He tilted his head and studied her, not answering right away. He could lie with the best of them when he wanted to, but most of the time, he was brutally honest. The silence had the feel of that honesty.

“No,” he said slowly, his tone thoughtful. “Don’t think you are, pidge.” He paused again. “Well, no more so than the average fourteen-year-old ticking time bomb of hormones, at least.”

Dawn snorted and rolled her eyes. “Gee, thanks.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm, but she actually did feel a little bit better. “It’s just…. There’s a hellgod after me. She tortured some guy to death, and then she tortured you, all because of me. We’ve been doing all this research, but we still don’t really know what I am.”

“You’re Dawn,” he said simply. “Don’t really matter much beyond that. The past shapes us, yeah, but it’s the present what makes us who we are. Always gonna be muck of the past on your boots, but it’s up to each person to decide if it’s a bit, a lot, or if they’ve stayed stuck waist deep in the bog. Can’t change the fact that you used to be energy, and you can’t shake off the muck that makes this Glorificus bint want you. But you can decide to move forward, out of the swamp of what was.”

She thought about that for a moment. It kind of made sense. She was who the present had made her. She liked that idea. _I’m Dawn Summers_ , she thought. Who was Dawn Summers? Someone who had started out as a key, but was now a girl. A girl who liked writing in her diary and coming up with crazy recipes. Maybe she’d been some kind of weird energy, but now she was a daughter and a sister and a soon-to-be aunt.

She smiled at Spike. “Is that something you learned from talking to Ben?”

“Nah. That’s always been my personal philosophy. Most vampires, they’re all about the past. They immerse themselves in it.” He shook his head in disgust. “Tend to get stagnant and boring, that lot.” He shuddered as if that was the worst thing someone could possibly do. “You’ve got to respect the past, but wallowing in it doesn’t do any good, does it?”

They were both quiet for a few minutes, eating cookies and watching some movie Dawn wasn’t familiar with. She liked Spike’s philosophy. It explained why he hadn’t treated her any differently after finding out what she was.

“You know, you’re really smart.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said with a slight smile. “Also really good looking, athletic, and unbelievably modest.”

Her giggle was cut off by the front door opening and her mom coming in. That was a relief. Spike could claim all he wanted that Mom wasn’t the boss of him, but he usually caved when she gave an order. Between the two of them, they’d be able to keep Spike from going on another cleaning frenzy or adding more bleached piles of dirt to the circle around the bassinet in Buffy’s room. Even Mom agreed that that last part was kind of weird.

Mom opened her mouth to say something – probably something about needing help to bring things in – but the words never came. Time slowed and sped up in random spurts as several weird looking little men rushed in through the open door.

One of them lifted his arm in slow motion while Dawn stood there, feeling trapped in molasses. Then his arm came down in a rush towards Mom’s head, and she was on the floor. Dawn stared at the crumpled form of her mother for what felt like only a split second, but when she noticed her immediate surroundings again, Spike was standing between her and the demons, trying to fight them off.

“You thought you could hide the key from us, did you?” one of them said smugly as the others grabbed Spike. He struggled, but there were too many of them. “But we’ve been watching you. We’ve seen how the Slayer keeps you and your spawn safe. And now the most radiant and beauteous Glory shall have what she seeks.”

Dawn’s eyes widened as they met Spike’s. These creepazoids worked for Glory, and they had made the same mistake she had. They thought the baby was the key. She opened her mouth to tell them they had it all wrong, but Spike spoke before she could.

“No point telling tales, Bit. Sharp bunch, this lot. They’ve figured it out.” The look in his eyes was oddly resigned and conveyed a warning to keep her mouth shut.

And then he was gone, Glory’s minions dragging him out of the house and leaving her there alone with her unconscious mother. Panic and shock held her immobile for a moment, but she got hold of herself fairly quickly. She was a Summers, dammit. Summers women didn’t just stand around like useless lumps. She called an ambulance and Giles for her mom, then ran out into the night, heading for the cemetery Buffy had been planning to patrol.

 

**…**

 

“So, yeah… umf.” Buffy winced as the vampire she was fighting got in a lucky punch. That’s what she got for being chatty during a fight. At least it kept things interesting. She punched him back and got her stake ready. “I know I should… uhn… talk to Willow, but….”

The vampire got in another hit. _Okay, less talky and more slay-ey._ She staked her opponent before turning to look at Tara and Anya. They were sitting near one of the graves, the witch with an open textbook on her lap while the ex-demon happily munched from a bag of chips. She didn’t need help with the slaying, but it was nice to have someone to talk to other than the vampires she was dusting.

She missed having Spike with her, but even just tagging along and making snarky comments had become a little too much for him lately. So she’d asked Tara to come with her as combination study buddy and company. That had led to thoughts of Xander and Anya hanging out as well, but Xander had apparently already been tapped as a guest at the latest Willow pity party.

“I’ve just been really overwhelmed, you know? I haven’t even been able to give Angel the butt kicking he so totally deserves.” Just thinking about Angel right now enraged her. “Dealing with Willow on top of everything else….” She shook her head.

“She, she really h-has been trying to do what she th-thinks is right,” Tara said with an apologetic smile. “She’s n-not so good with realizing she doesn’t always know what’s right.”

Buffy sighed and sat down across from the two of them. “I know. She means well, but sometimes that doesn’t matter. When you break things while trying to fix other things, you’ve still broken something.” She sighed again. “She was the first friend I made here in Sunnydale. I don’t want to lose her, but I’ve got so much going on. There’s a hellgod after my little sister and the impending motherhood thing is getting impendier.”

It had been four days since the Council had come and gone, dropping their hellgod bombshell. They had also given them a lot of information to sift through and her first paycheck. First paycheck…. The first time she’d gotten one of those, she’d been Anne, running away from her life and responsibilities.

This check though, was all about accepting responsibility and moving towards a new stage of her life. Well, for the most part. She’d bought a bunch of stuff for the baby, but she’d also added to her wardrobe, including the kickass ass kicking boots she was currently wearing.

A good dose of retail therapy really helped when you couldn’t just stake away your problems, especially when there was no real guilt attached. Now that she was actually being paid, there was plenty of money in the household, even with her mother’s hospital bills and the baby on the way.

“So, yeah, lots going on,” she continued, snagging a chip from Anya’s bag. “Not really much time to devote to Willow and Angel.”

“I really don’t like Angel,” Anya commented. “He tried to interrupt orgasm time on Valentine’s Day.”

“He _what_?” This was the first Buffy had heard of that. Since Xander hadn’t mentioned it, she’d just assumed Angel hadn’t bothered trying to get in touch with him.

“He showed up wanting to talk to Xander, but he was tied up at the time. He was very rude and insistent. I slammed the door in his face.”

“What was Xander tied up with?” Buffy asked, wondering what could have keep him so busy he didn’t notice Angel outside his door. As far as she knew, he still hated Angel and would have loved having a chance to mock him.

“Nylon rope,” Anya answered matter-of-factly. Poor Tara choked on the chip she’d just taken, but managed to recover quickly. “You wouldn’t think so, just looking at him, but my Xander has very sensitive skin. Jute rope is just too harsh for him.”

“…Oh. _That_ kind of tied up.” Buffy wasn’t sure how else to respond to that. Ignore it? Ask about her technique? Or if Xander got extremely cuddly and sort of kittenish if you got the bindings at just the right place between loose and tight? She didn’t really _want_ to know that about Xander, but she’d kind of been wondering if that was normal or just a nifty Spike thing.

“Okay, changing the subject,” she said, smiling at Anya to take out the sting. She was really weird sometimes, but did seem to have a good heart. “Remind me that I need to stop by a twenty-four-hour place tonight for a new toothbrush. Temporarily having a soul apparently does nothing to stop a hormone crazed vampire from using his girlfriend’s toothbrush to scrub the bathroom grout.”

Tara covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. “Sounds like Spike is going through human nesting behavior.”

“Yeah, that’s what Mom said.” Buffy smiled wryly. “Though even she doesn’t get the dirt thing.” Tara gave her a questioning look, and she explained. “He’s been putting these little piles of dirt all around the bassinet, acting like it’s some kind of mini garden even though nothing’s planted. Then he gets agitated that there’s dirt all around where the baby is going to sleep, so he ends up spraying a mix of Clorox and water over the piles.”

“It could be the vampire version of nesting behavior,” Anya suggested. “They usually end up buried and rising up out of the dirt.”

“That’s a good point. M-maybe we should get him a potted plant?” Tara paused a moment, looking thoughtful. “Maybe a bluebell. They, they represent the rebirth of the dead.”

Buffy was pretty sure Spike would like that. Before she could say as much, a familiar voice yelled her name. Dawn was somewhere in the cemetery, and she sounded upset.

 

**…**

 

Willow had been Xander’s best friend since they were in kindergarten. They’d gone through a lot together, to the point where nothing could ever tear them apart. That being said, he kind of wanted to smack her upside the head at the moment.

“Well, of _course_ she’s mad at you, Wills,” he said being as patient as he could while she paced the room, cuddling the cat she’d gotten with Tara. “You blabbed to Angel and then didn’t even tell her about it.”

“I know you don’t like Angel, but… but he just seemed so upset. They had something pure and beautiful, and yeah, he kinda blew it by walking away, but he still cares about her.” The relationship between Angel and Buffy being called pure and beautiful made Xander want to vomit, but he managed to hold onto both his cookies and his tongue. “I just…. I told him about the ritual so he wouldn’t be so worried, you know? So he’d know that the baby isn’t evil.”

“And instead of believing you, he had Wesley check it out, which brought the Council down on our heads,” he pointed out.

“That turned out to be a good thing,” Willow protested. “They gave us information about Glory, and now Buffy is getting paid. Everything should be _okay_ now.”

There were some things that were cute in a kindergartener and even a socially awkward high schooler. Those same behaviors in a powerful, college age witch? Not so cute, Xander was coming to realize. He’d grown up a lot in the past several months, starting with getting his own apartment and continuing with his ongoing realization that the world wasn’t black and white. Willow hadn’t had that grownup awakening yet.

He sighed and rubbed his face. “Angel had no business poking his nose into things. You should have turned him away and called Buffy. She might have let it go in the past, but after the things she did back when the ritual first happened….” He trailed off and shook his head. “You could have stopped her. You chose not to.”

“Why does everyone keep bringing that up?” she cried out in frustration. “No one else stopped her, but everyone’s all like, let’s blame Willow for it.”

“The only two who could have done anything about it were you and Tara, and she _did_ do something about it once she knew what was going on. What were the rest of us supposed to do? Throw ourselves at her feet and hope she would trip and bonk her head?”

Before Willow could respond to that, the phone rang. She stomped over to it and picked up the receiver. “Hello,” she said grumpily. Then her eyes widened. “Um… y-yeah. We can be there in five minutes.” She hung up and looked at Xander, obviously worried. “Buffy needs us to meet her at the Magic Box. Glory has Spike. She thinks the baby is the key.”

 

**…**

 

“They get in through your ears. Bugs in your ears, they eat your brains and leave eggs. They control you. I, I need my earplugs. Where are my earplugs?”

“No worries, mate, you’re wearing some new ones. Clear and weightless. Confuses the bugs,” Spike said from the bed he’d been dumped on, his voice soothing as he reassured the crazy man. He’d learned a long time ago that fighting the delusions was usually pointless.

The man looked at him hopefully for a moment, then started rambling about other things. He was calmer now, his random babblings a comforting backdrop that nearly lulled Spike to sleep. He twitched wrong as he started to drift off, sending a fresh wave of agony through his leg.

 _Bloody hell,_ he thought in irritation as he ran a hand through his hair. God, he was tired, and he still couldn’t sleep. Would have been a good way to pass the time while waiting for Buffy to come and save his arse. But, no. There was the sodding insomnia and the fact that the bloody hellbitch had shattered his kneecap as punishment for “lying” to her when he supposedly had had the key the entire time.

It was healing, but that was draining his reserves and leaving him hungry. He was pretty sure the crazy man had been left in the small bedroom with him as a food source. He could hear the man’s blood as it thudded enticingly through his veins. Could smell the mouthwatering aroma mixed in with the scent of Ben that permeated the room.

 _What’ve you got yourself mixed up in, doc?_ he wondered, trying to distract himself from the delicious human wandering about. God, he was disgusting. That was a _person,_ and he was practically drooling at the thought of eating him. Thank God for the chip. Even if hunger drove him ‘round the bloody bend, he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

He pulled his thoughts from how hungry he was, and focused on Ben. He didn’t remember a lot from when Glory had snatched him the first time, but there had been the vaguest sense of a familiar scent. Ben had been there. And then there was that weird slayer dream. By the time he’d known it was more than just a dream, some of the details had become fuzzy. Thinking about it, though, it had suggested a connection between the doctor-in-training and the hellbitch.

There was a sudden commotion on the other side of the door. Buffy. Had to be. She’d come for him. The sense of relief was almost overwhelming. Not that he’d ever thought she wouldn’t come for him, but he had expected it to take a bit longer. Then the bedroom door opened, and Spike stared in stunned disbelief at the woman in the doorway.

She reached out languidly for the crazy man and snapped his neck. “Hello, Spike. Mummy’s come to make everything alright again,” Drusilla said with a dreamy smile.


	28. Chapter 28

Spike had never really given much thought to the whole idea of reincarnation, but he was starting to wonder if there was something to it. Ticking off some sort of cosmic entity in a past life would go a long way towards explaining his current one. But that sort of thing would have been attached to his soul, wouldn’t it? Should have buggered off and left him in peace when the soul did. Maybe Thursday’s was the one responsible.

Of course, that didn’t explain all of the crap he’d been through before she’d existed, or even the fact that she existed at all. Seemed sod’s law just found him a tasty treat, especially since he’d first set foot in good old Sunnyhell. Either way, here he was, chained to a bed in the Crawford Street mansion, getting what he had once so desperately wanted now that he’d finally managed to move the bloody hell on.

“So, Darla got mojo’d back to life as a human, and you vamped her?” He said, focusing on making sense of Dru’s words as she snuggled him close and petted his hair. “And Angel became even more of a nutter than usual and tried to set you on fire?”

“Set your great grandmum sister on fire, he did.” Dru gave him a sly little smile. “Nasty, nasty. Would have burned me too, but I left before he dropped the flame. Knew it was time, you see.” She laughed in girlish delight and slid her hand under his sweater to rest on his belly. “I’m going to be a grandmummy.”

Buffy was always touching him like that. Dru doing it left him feeling even more confused and conflicted than when she’d come through the door to Ben’s room. She’d thrown him away, and now she was back again, cooing and fussing over him just like he’d once wanted. Now though… now he couldn’t keep from practically melting against her, and he hated himself for it.

His relationship with Drusilla had always been a complex dance with the two of them constantly switching off on the lead. It had been painstakingly built up and maintained for nearly twelve decades, the few set patterns of their ever-changing dance well-worn grooves in his heart and mind. She was mother, child, lover, savior, and damnation all wrapped up in an ethereal package.

He wanted to push her away, to tell her it was too late, and he was with the Slayer, now. He wanted to hold her close and beg her to take him back, to forgive him for ever loving another woman. He wanted to stake her to save all the people she would kill, to save the terrified woman he could hear and smell in the next room over. He wanted to tell her to leave Sunnydale now, before Buffy found and dusted her. Most of all, he wanted to rest his head against her chest and just _sleep_ , breathing in her familiar scent while her petting and gentle touches soothed away the nightmares. He was just so tired. He still wasn’t sleeping well, and getting kidnapped – twice in one night, which had to be some kind of record – wasn’t helping any.

“My poor, sweet William,” Dru murmured, lightly kissing him before getting up. “All tangled up by the Slayer and little dolly.”

She slipped out of the room, leaving Spike alone with his thoughts. He tugged futilely at the chain binding him to the headboard. What was it with women he loved holding him prisoner lately? Yeah, he liked bondage, but being a captive? Not so much. He gave one last tug and sighed. Not like he could actually get far if he tried to run. Not with his knee still messed up and the sprog weighing him down.

Dru came back fairly quickly, dragging along the gagged young woman she’d kidnapped. Spike closed his eyes for a moment. _Oh god,_ he thought, feeling sick. She was going to eat the girl right in front of him. He didn’t want to see this. He didn’t want to just helplessly watch while some poor chit who’d done nothing wrong was devoured by the evil madwoman he couldn’t help still having feelings for.

‘Course, didn’t really matter what he wanted, did it? He forced his eyes open and fixed them on the girl’s, letting her know she wasn’t alone in this nightmare. “Dru, don’t. Please, just… just let her go.”

Dru brought her finger up to her mouth and made shushing noises at him. The tiny spark of hope that had flared in the girl’s eyes died, leaving behind terrified resignation. Still, her gaze stayed locked on his as Dru dragged her farther into the room. Why was she being brought closer? A horrible thought suddenly struck him. _Oh god, she couldn’t mean to…._

“Dru, let her go,” he urged again, knowing it wouldn’t work but unable to just silently watch. “No point in bringing her to me.”

She smiled sadly at him as she shoved the girl down on the bed beside him. “It’s alright,” she cooed. “I know about the nasty bit of plastic those tin soldiers put in your head. And about the delicious little dolly’s soul. She’s lookin’ at me out your eyes, my pretty boy, like that horrid curse they put on my Angel. Mummy knows all and will make it better.”

She curled up beside the girl, pressing her right up against him. “Just do me one little favor,” Dru murmured, drawing her nail along the shaking woman’s throat. It wasn’t a killing wound, but blood leaked from it, taunting him.

“No, Dru,” he whispered, fighting against the hunger gnawing at him. He’d worn himself out with all the bloody cleaning and hadn’t gotten around to eating anything beyond a couple of cookies when he’d been snatched by Glory’s minions. He could feel Thursday draining his energy. “Don’t do this.”

“Eat something,” she said softly, snapping the girl’s neck.

He jerked back at the awful sound and stared at the corpse. She’d just been alive and a _person_ and now…. _She’s food,_ his more practical side pointed out. _Just rapidly cooling food. Eat it while it’s still hot. Be rude to waste it, now wouldn’t it?_ He swallowed hard, his ingrained habit of breathing when he was stressed making things so much worse. She smelled wonderful.

She was already dead. Desecrating a corpse wasn’t as bad as outright killing an innocent person, right? No, but it was still _wrong_. She was dead. She wouldn’t care. Hell, maybe she was an organ donor. It would be his duty to make sure she didn’t go to waste.

God, he couldn’t _think_. He was hungry and tired, and the sprog was pushing at him for energy while her soul screamed in horror over what he was considering. He just… he needed to think. Buffy would forgive him, wouldn’t she?

_Buffy._ All the little sips of her blood she’d gifted him with. God help him, he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t betray her like this. Couldn’t…. He vamped out, pain sizzling through him as Thursday fed on his demonic essence now that it was closer to the surface.

With a low growl, he savagely bit into the girl’s neck, nearly sobbing with pleasure and disgust at the feel of his fangs sinking into still warm flesh.

 

**…**

 

When they got to Glory’s place, it was a mess. There were injured or dead scabby things all over the place and no sign of Spike. _That has to be good, right?_ Buffy thought uneasily. _Spike not being in the lair of the crazy hellbitch_ has _to be very much of the good._ He’d probably rescued himself already and was sitting smugly at home watching TV, the big jerk.

“There appears to have been some sort of altercation,” Giles said, frowning as he nudged one of Glory’s minions with his foot.

“Gee, ya think?” Xander asked sarcastically. He, Willow, and Giles had agreed to come with her while Anya watched the shop and Tara stayed with Dawn at the hospital. “I thought they just had a lot of amusing pratfalls while trying to decorate.”

Buffy rolled her eyes and ignored them as she focused on a relatively intact minion. “Okay, you,” she said, grabbing him by the collar and lifting him up. “What happened here? Where’s Spike?”

“I’ll never talk!” She lifted her arm, her hand curling into a fist. “I’ll talk!” he wailed hurriedly. “We brought the vampire to the most radiant and aromatic Glory, but then another vampire came for him. A terrifying woman who seemed to know all of our moves before we made them.”

Another vampire came for him? Buffy wanted to think it was Harmony, but the ditz couldn’t fight her way out of a wet paper bag. Still, what other option was there? She really didn’t want to think of the only one that came to mind.

“This vampire, was she blonde and kind of dumb?” she demanded, tightening her grip.

“N-no! She was dark and willowy and sort of spidery.”

_Drusilla,_ she thought in growing horror. Drusilla had Spike. Drusilla who had been his first love and preferred to eat children.

She dropped the minion abruptly and turned to face the others. “Dru has Spike. We need to leave. Now.”

She hurried towards the door just as Glory came through, arms full of packages.

 

**…**

 

The air stung her face as Buffy ran, pulling tears from her eyes that she was too stunned to shed on her own. Oh god, what had she done? She couldn’t have just done that. She had to go back. She had to turn around and go back. She kept running forward, panic and the overwhelming need to find and protect her baby pushing her to her limits.

Sick horror filled her as memories of what had happened flickered through her mind.

_“What the hell is going on here?” the enraged hellgod demands._

_Buffy stares at her, knowing she has to get out as soon as she can. She doesn’t have time for a throw down with this woman. Not when Spike has been kidnapped by his crazy, baby-eating ex._

She hadn’t been thinking straight at that point. All that had really seemed to matter was that Drusilla had her baby and the man she loved. The man she loved…. Did he even _know_ she loved him?

Did her friends know she cared about them? How could they, after what she’d done?

_“Willow, use your magic! Hold her back and follow me!” Buffy shouts, as she turns and runs towards the window. The protective instinct is screaming inside of her, pushing at her. She crashes through the glass, tucking and rolling to ease the fall._

_She’s cleared the way. The others should follow any second. Willow will make a wall or something just long for them to jump. Any second. Except… they don’t come, and it’s getting harder to wait as the seconds tick by._

_Then Xander is at the window looking like he’s about to follow her out. He looks behind him suddenly, then back, a panicked expression on his face. Something’s going on. What’s happening? Why aren’t they following?_

_“Go, Buffy!” Xander yells, turning away from the window. “Go!”_

Her friends had gone in with her, and she’d abandoned them. She had run away, leaving them to face Glory without her. She was a monster.

_She turns and runs, leaving them behind. She knows she should turn back, but she doesn’t do it, not even when she hears Willow’s agonized scream._

She would have sobbed, but she didn’t have the breath. She needed it for running. _I’m sorry,_ she thought, tears streaming down her cheeks. _I’m so sorry._ And still, she ran.

 

**…**

 

Dawn was a warm weight against Tara’s side as they sat together in the hospital waiting room. Part of her wished she could be with Willow, Buffy, and the others, but the rest of her understood. Someone needed to be there for Dawn and Joyce. She hadn’t been left behind, she’d been trusted with part of Buffy’s family so the Slayer could focus on the part that was missing. She’d never really been trusted like that before, and she treasured it, despite the circumstances.

Dawn mumbled in her sleep, and Tara gently stroked her hair. Poor Dawnie. She’d had so much going on, and now her mom was back in the hospital and her brother-in-law was missing because he’d allowed himself to be kidnapped in her place. She had to be blaming herself for a lot of this, even though it wasn’t her fault.

A doctor came out into the waiting room and strode towards them. “Dawnie, you need to wake up, sweetie,” she whispered, gently shaking Dawn’s shoulder and getting her up on her feet. It was always best to face news from a doctor on your feet, even though this one didn’t have the bad news face her mother’s doctor had often worn.

“Miss Summers,” the doctor said, smiling tiredly at Dawn, “your mother regained consciousness, but we went ahead and ran several scans just to make sure she’s okay. We found an unruptured aneurysm. We can take care of it though, and your mother should be just –”

“Tara!” a voice suddenly gasped out, interrupting the doctor.

“Buffy?” Dawn said, her eyes wide as she looked from the man in front of her to her sister.

“Stay here and talk to the doctor about your mom, sweetie,” she said softly. It sounded like Joyce was going to be okay, but Buffy…. Buffy didn’t look fine.

Tara smiled apologetically at the doctor and gave Dawn an encouraging pat on the shoulder before making her way to Buffy’s side. The slayer was bent over, her hands on her knees as she caught her breath.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, starting to feel uneasy. Why would Buffy have run here hard enough to be out of breath? She could understand her being worried about her mom, but why hadn’t Giles or Xander driven her? “Where are the others?”

Buffy looked up at her, utterly stricken. “I… I….” She sobbed and yanked out one of her hairs, holding it out to Tara. “L-locator spell,” she panted. “I need… you to… find Spike…. Should work, we’re connected by magic and the baby.”

Tara took the hair, her unease blooming into growing alarm. Something was very wrong here. “I-I don’t understand. Wh-where is everyone? I thought you, you found Spike already.”

“Someone took him,” Buffy said, her face crumpling as her knees suddenly gave out. “Oh god, Tara, I left them there! Drusilla has Spike, and I left them there.”

She stared down at Buffy. Someone named Drusilla had Spike? She’d left them? What did that mean? Her eyes widened as she figured at least some of it out. Spike hadn’t been there, and Buffy had left the others behind with Glory.

_Willow,_ she thought, distraught. Willow was facing a hellgod. She wanted to scream at Buffy, to ask how she could have done such a thing, but she didn’t. She dropped down beside Buffy and laid a comforting hand on her arm. Her child and the man she loved were missing. Even if she hadn’t had the ritual pushing her, she would have been conflicted. Her friends were practically her family, but the baby was her actual family, and a pure innocent as well.

“I-I’ll find him for you,” she said softly.

Willow had a lot of power at her disposal. She would keep herself and the others safe while Tara took care of Buffy. Everything would be alright. _You can do it, Willow. I believe in you._

 

**…**

 

It was her fault, in a way. The pixies had told her, even as a human, that her pretty little daisy boy was meant for sunshine. They told her what was likely to be, but it wasn’t what necessarily would. She should have fought. Tried harder to make him push the Slayer away. But she had let him go. And now look what had happened to the poor thing. Chip and babe and soul all stuffed up into him, leaving him unsure of who he was anymore.

There was a chance. It was tiny and fragile, but there. If she did things just right, she would have her boy back. If she acted now, he might choose her. They’d go to L.A. and be a family again. Daddy and Grandmum and her little Spike, all together again with her.

A sound caught her attention, drawing her from her fantasies. Oh, her poor boy. He was trying to hide it, but he was crying over the dead girl. He mourned her passing and hated himself for using her as food. Wretched little dolly and her wretched soul, doing such terrible things her William. But, no, ‘twasn’t the babe’s fault she had a soul, and it wouldn’t be hurting him for too much longer. About to pop, he was.

Soon, but not soon enough. She couldn’t wait, not if she wanted to nurture that tiny seed of a chance. Dru drifted over to the dresser and pulled a long knife from one of the drawers. She’d make everything better.


	29. Chapter 29

Spike huddled against the headboard, one arm pressed tightly against his middle while the other carefully cradled a sweater-wrapped bundle against his chest. It was all wrinkly and horrible looking and the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. She’d settled some since Dru had given her over – his no doubt familiar presence a comfort – but she was still fussy. Poor little thing was hungry. He could relate. Didn’t matter if you’d just eaten, getting sliced open stem to stern by your crazy ex tended to leave a fella a wee bit peckish.

He slowly shifted positions until he was sure he could move his arm without his insides leaking out through Dru’s haphazard stitching. He wasn’t chained to the bed anymore, but until he’d healed some, there was no point in even trying to get away. He gave himself a moment to settle, then he ran his finger along the wound before gently sliding it into Thursday’s mouth. His blood wouldn’t offer any nourishment at all, but if she needed human blood like he suspected, it would at least taste good. She latched onto his finger, quieting further and gazing at him in an unfocused way like he was the center of the universe.

His eyes drifted closed as he breathed in her scent. Vampire and slayer, plus a hint of Buffy and a bit of him, all overlaid with the warm sweetness of infant. It made him want to cuddle and pet her, to trail kisses along her wrinkled little face and all her tiny little fingers and toes. To sink his fangs into her and drain away the blood. She’d just be a mouthful or two, but it would be warm and alive, and she was just vampire enough that he was certain it wouldn’t set off the chip.

Give her more of his blood at just the right time, and he could keep her like this forever. The perfect little cuddly who would always love him best. He’d stay everything to her, and she would never leave him. He nuzzled her temple, taking in another deep breath of her scent, and he suddenly realized just what the hell he had been thinking. He was once again a soulless, evil vampire with possible abandonment issues, but that was cracked even by _his_ standards. Hell, even _Dru_ had never tried to turn a bloody newborn.

As if drawn by his thoughts, Dru came to him, the bed dipping slightly with her weight as she settled onto it. She snuggled against him after shoving the drained corpse of the young woman away to roll to the floor as if she were no more than an empty food cartoon. And really, that _was_ all she was. He looked down at her and felt _nothing_ , other than the regret that there wasn’t another one lying about to snack on. Well, that and strangely disoriented by it all.

As recently as five minutes ago, she’d been a person to him. A sentient being who had had thoughts and feelings that had actually _mattered_ , who had been murdered and then… _violated_ by having her blood stolen. And now… now he just stared at her, confused by how foreign those thoughts seemed.

He shivered and cuddled Thursday closer, almost wishing he could stuff her back inside. Dru had given her back right quick, but he’d still been attacked and his sprog snatched away. He shivered again at the memory. Dru going at him with the knife, the sudden feeling of… _loss_ as soul and sprog were yanked out of him in a glowy purple ball that had dissolved away at contact with the outside world. He felt strange and lightheaded and sort of empty.

“We’ll find a cow,” Dru said as she began lightly petting his head. “Eat the calf, and keep the cow for the little dolly. Once she’s a proper little girl, we’ll make her family, won’t we, my pretty Spike? You, me, Angel, Darla, and our little one. All together.”

Despite what she seemed to think, the thought of a family reunion was no more appealing now than it had been with the soul affecting him. If he could coax her into giving up the idea of being a happy family with Angel and Darla, though.... He let himself imagine it, falling back into the familiar pattern of subsuming his own needs and desires to Dru’s whims while they raised Thursday together. Let her age to five or so before making her a full vampire.

Part of him longed for it, to go back to what he was used to, being Dru’s devoted knight. But… he’d never been one for lingering in the past, and that’s what Dru was. His past. If she’d come back for him sooner, maybe things would have been different, but he’d finally moved on. There was Buffy and Thursday, who – despite his bit of lunacy earlier – he really didn’t want to become any more of a vampire than she already was, especially not while still a child.

Buffy was his present. His dancing, shining girl, with her energy and passion and multiple facets. Sometimes she didn’t quite get things, but she was bright. She liked to banter and babbled when she was nervous, but she liked quiet moments, too. Actions meant more to her than words, but she’d signed up for a poetry class before she even knew he had an interest of his own in it.

Oh god, poetry…. One more bucket added to the ocean of loss he was barely holding back. He inhaled deeply, reassuring himself with Thursday’s scent. She was still there. She wasn’t really gone. She was in his arms, and she was safe. Hungry and fussy, but safe. And… he could still sort of _feel_ her soul. It wasn’t influencing him anymore, wasn’t mostly plugging up the holes that kept him from writing anything more than crap, but he was aware of it. He didn’t think he’d ever forget the feel of his daughter’s sweet, innocent little soul.

Dru was saying something, but it was getting harder to focus and he’d started shaking slightly at some point. _Feels almost like when the sprog would be drainin’ me,_ he thought fuzzily. He vaguely wondered if the ritual was confused by Thursday not being where she was supposed to be. _Put her back an’ everythin’s right as rain again._

He was drawn from his muzzy thoughts by a loud sound somewhere in the house and a familiar scent. He tried to move, to get up and head for the door, but everything sort of grayed out for a moment. When he came back to himself, the door had been flung open, and Buffy was there, wild and glorious, with stake in hand.

 

**…**

 

Buffy flung open the door that Tara had indicated, stake in hand and ready for action. She’d planned to go in there and launch herself at Drusilla, hopefully dusting the crazy ho right away. What she saw in the bedroom, though, held her still for a moment as she took it all in. Drusilla cuddled up with a half-naked Spike, who was holding something against his chest.

The baby…. The baby had been born without her there, and Spike was with Drusilla. She’d done her best to do what the dream had said, but she was going to lose Spike and the baby anyway? Hurt and jealousy flooded through her, and she took a step back, bumping into Tara.

“Oh god,” the other woman gasped, staring past Buffy into the room. “Wh-what did she _do_ to him? His aura’s in shreds.”

Buffy looked back in confusion. She couldn’t see auras, but with a second look, she realized she’d jumped to conclusions. She wasn’t seeing a snugglefest between two reunited lovers. Yeah, Dru was cuddling Spike, but he was just sort of _there_ , looking dazed and… well, _not_ there. She wasn’t sure if vampires could go into shock, but he was doing a pretty good imitation of it if not.

Guilt stabbed at her over her assumption and the fact that she was just now noticing that he’d been cut open and barely stitched back together. She took a step forward into the room – clutching tighter at her stake in determination – just as awareness seeped back into Spike’s eyes. They brightened at the sight of her, the emotions flickering through their depths too many to count. They all boiled down to, _thank God you came, love._

With a shriek of rage, Dru was up off the bed and practically flying at her. The unearthly sound along with the way her dress fluttered behind her and the strange, out of sync way she moved all combined to make her seem like something other than a vampire. She was a living – _un_ living – embodiment of insanity, innocence, and utter depravity.

Buffy pushed Tara out of the way and backpedaled, luring the vampiress out into the main room. She didn’t want to put Spike or the baby in danger by fighting in the bedroom. Plus, it seemed kind of insensitive to try to kill Spike’s ex right there in front of him. She knew how much Dru had meant to him.

“Check on them!” she called out to Tara once the doorway was free. The witch gave her a nod and darted into the room.

It was almost like fighting Spike, more of a dance than a battle. Both had an unpredictable rhythm, but Spike always flowed while Dru had random jolts of odd, jerky movement. She darted this way and that, twirling and twisting, almost as if she knew every blow before it was sent her way. Through it all, she was oddly graceful, and Buffy found herself almost mesmerized by it.

Had Kendra felt like that when she’d fought Drusilla? She hadn’t exactly given the other slayer’s body a thorough examination, but there hadn’t seemed to be any wounds other than the slash along her throat. It was like she hadn’t even fought back.

She couldn’t think about that. She had to focus. She suddenly found herself staring into the madwoman’s eyes as she murmured something. What was she…? What was going on? Buffy blinked and shook her head as the world sort of… _tilted_ for a moment.

“Buffy, dear, are you alright?” her mom asked, looking at her in concern.

What was her mother doing there? She was supposed to be in the hospital, getting an operation to take care of the unruptured aneurysm thingy. She should be resting, not hanging out in an abandoned mansion.  

“My poor girl,” her mother said sympathetically, reaching out for her. “You look so confused.”

“Buffy!”

She jerked back at the sound of Tara’s voice calling her name, Dru’s nails only managing to graze her instead of slitting her throat. What the hell had just happened? Buffy stared at her opponent, shaken and disturbed. Dru hissed at her and lunged, a move that the slayer only barely dodged.

 _I need to end this,_ Buffy thought grimly, frantically searching for some way to get the upper hand. She couldn’t let whatever that had been happen again. There. A lit oil lamp. She darted towards it, grabbed it, and flung it at Drusilla before the contained flame could do more than warm her hand. The glass shattered on impact with the other woman, then fell to the floor in a crash of breaking glass.

The vampire shrieked in pain and horror as her dress caught on fire, followed by the puddle of flaming oil on the floor between the two of them. She turned and fled, leaving Buffy to either fight through the flames to follow or to go back and get the others out.

With a curse, Buffy turned towards the bedroom. Tara was standing in the doorway, supporting Spike. He was holding the baby, who was loudly crying. _Probably hungry,_ she thought, feeling dazed and worn out from everything that had happened that night. Despite that, she hurried over to them, gently taking the sweater-wrapped bundle from Spike.

 _Oh god, she’s so tiny,_ Buffy thought, staring at the infant in wonder and fear. She’d struggled not to break Riley at times. How was she supposed to take care of something so tiny and fragile? Was she real? She couldn’t be real, could she?

“Getting’ a bit warm in here, Slayer,” Spike pointed out weakly.

She looked up at him, then past him into the bedroom as she remembered something that had barely registered before. There was a dead woman in the room. Had Dru turned her? It didn’t really matter, she supposed, heart aching for the woman and her loved ones. Either way, the fire would take care of things.

Spike followed her gaze, his eyes widening. “I… she was already dead,” he blurted out, sounding upset and defensive.

 _Huh?_ Buffy looked at him in confusion for a moment, wondering what the hell he was talking about. She was already dead? What did that…? Understanding hit at the same time that he seemed to realize she never would have even suspected him if he hadn’t said anything. Oh god, he’d _fed_ off of that poor girl’s corpse.

She didn’t know how to feel. How was she supposed to feel? No soul. He was soulless again, and there hadn’t been anyone to tell him it was wrong, though he had obviously realized she’d be upset by it. He hadn’t killed the woman, but…. Revulsion and confusion roiled through her. She couldn’t deal with this right now. Her friends were in danger, and she needed to get the baby fed and to the hospital to make sure she was okay. And they had to get out of the mansion. The fire was spreading and the smoke would be getting thick soon.

“We need to get out of here,” she said, more harshly than she’d intended.

Spike flinched at the tone of her voice, his expressive eyes showing hurt and the clear thought that he’d fucked things up. She wasn’t sure that he had, but she couldn’t say that. Her thoughts and feelings were too jumbled. There was just too much going on. There wasn’t time to stop and tell him that she needed to figure things out.

So, without a word, she put her free arm around him and helped Tara get him out of the burning house.

 

**…**

 

Tara watched Spike and Buffy as they all made their way towards the hospital, focusing on them to keep from thinking about Willow. If she thought about Willow, she’d curl into a shaking ball of worry and fear, and that wouldn’t help anyone. All she could do was hope they would all be okay and do her best to help.

She didn’t know all that had happened to him, but at least the damage to Spike’s aura seemed to be repairing itself now that he was near Buffy. She wondered if it had something to do with the ritual. Magic could get strange if things went off the expected path, and that woman cutting the baby out was definitely not how things had been meant to happen. The fact that Buffy’s part of the ritual was still fully active and normal was probably stabilizing the part still affecting Spike.

Tears pricked at Tara’s eyes. Spike had done what he had to for him and the baby to survive. Buffy would realize that, wouldn’t she? Love was too precious to just throw away without giving it a chance.

 _Does Willow know how much I love her?_ she wondered in misery. She would see her again, she had to. And when she did, she’d make sure Willow knew she was loved and cherished, no matter what mistakes she’d made.  Until then, she’d be strong, and she wouldn’t cry until she had Willow held tightly in her embrace.

Her resolve held until they got to the hospital and found Xander in the waiting room with Dawn and Ben. Xander’s left wrist was in a brace, and a bandage was wound around his head. Willow. Where was Willow? _Xander’s her best friend. Why isn’t she out here with him?_ Oh god, she had to be hurt. Or… or….

Xander spotted them at that moment and walked over, smiling tightly. He looked exhausted, hurt, and worried. There was grief in his eyes, but not the kind that said someone was dead. Willow wasn’t dead. Oh, thank God, she wasn’t dead.

“Xander,” Buffy said, her voice choked with emotion. She got Spike settled in one of the waiting room chairs with the baby before flinging her arms around her friend. “Oh god, Xander, I’m so sorry. Willow and Giles, are, are they….” She let him go, trailing off as he looked away.

“Um… Giles, uh, has a concussion,” he finally said. Tara’s sense of relief was suddenly swamped by dread. “Willow….” His voice broke on her name, and he had to pause a moment to compose himself. “She did what she could to keep us safe, and, um… Glory didn’t like that much…. Um, I’m not really sure what happened, but Glory grabbed Willow, and….”

“And what?” Tara asked hoarsely. “Wh-what happened to Willow? Where is she!”

Xander swallowed hard and answered. “Her… her arm got ripped off. The left one, at the elbow. I think I must have blacked out for a little bit then, because next thing I know, Glory was gone and Ben was there. If he hadn’t…. He saved Willow’s life.”

Tara’s knees suddenly felt like they were made of jello. Buffy was saying something, but she couldn’t tell what it was. She didn’t really care. Oh god, Willow. Tara’s jello-knees wouldn’t support her anymore, and she sank to the ground. Her poor, sweet Willow. She was alive, and that was all that really mattered. She was the same person even part of her arm gone, but....

 _She’s got to be in so much pain,_ Tara thought numbly. Someone knelt beside her and hesitantly touched her shoulder. She sobbed and leaned against the Slayer for comfort.

 

**…**

 

Ben’s hands were shaking slightly as he checked over the newborn. Glory had done a lot of horrible things, but this time…. This time, he had actually known the people she was hurting. Thank God he’d been able to wrest control back when he had. He’d gotten a tourniquet on Willow that had probably saved her life, and had treated Xander’s relatively minor injuries while they waited for the ambulance.

So far, no one had questioned his “miraculous” arrival, but the vampire in the examination room with him was watching him intently. At least Buffy wasn’t there to ask any uncomfortable questions. She’d left the room a few minutes earlier when Dawn had come in to tell her that Joyce was out of surgery. The slayer had been subdued and distracted, alternately watching the baby like a hawk and staring at Spike in confusion.

“She seems to be fine,” he said, wrapping her up snuggly now that he was done. “Vitals are on the low side of normal, but that might be due to being half vampire.”

Spike practically snatched the baby from him, seeming both anxious and suspicious. Had he started putting things together, or was it psychological effects from what had basically been a brutal, non-consensual C-section? The procedure could be pretty traumatic even when done by a professional in the hospital.

 _Probably both,_ he thought, watching as Spike paced with the baby, dribbling blood into her mouth from the last of the transfusion bags Ben had snagged for him. Nearly three bags and being properly stitched up had gone a long way towards the healing process, something that had seemed to add to Buffy’s confusion.

“How much do you know?” Ben asked.

Spike turned to look at him, head tilted slightly and eyes narrowed. “Know? Not a lot. Just that your scent was all over the room I got locked in, and you just happened to appear once Glory was gone. You’ve some kind of connection with her, and I doubt it’s just bein’ roommates.

“You probably just imagined my scent. Hormones can do some crazy thi-” He trailed off at the look Spike gave him. It very clearly said, _I was pregnant, you git, not brain damaged._ Ben sighed and rubbed his face before laughing bitterly. “Yeah, it’s a bit more than that. Nothing that can really be done about it, though.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Spike said, an odd look in his eyes. “Why don’t you give me the particulars, and we can decide from there, yeah?”

He studied the vampire thoughtfully. Even though Spike would remember, there really wasn’t anything he could do about it. His friends wouldn’t even remember if he told them. Still… it _would_ be nice to talk to someone about it all. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel so alone. He sighed, and began to talk.


	30. Chapter 30

Exhaustion and pain tugged at him with every step, but still, Spike paced the confines of the small examination room, Thursday held securely in his arms. If he stopped moving now, he didn’t think he’d be able to start back up again for a long while, and now was not the time for a rest. _No matter how much I could bloody well use one._

He sighed and looked at Ben. “Not your fault, what they did, stickin’ a hellgod into an infant.”

He stared down at Thursday and was suddenly lost in her perfect little eyes. The equivalent of two weeks early, but no need for any special attention. Six-and-a-half pounds with all of her fingers and toes and everything where it was supposed to be. Well, except for Thursday herself, but she didn’t seem any the worse for wear from it.

Ben shifted slightly, drawing Spike’s attention. What had he been on about, again? Oh, right. “Not your fault, and you’ve done good by me and the Slayer, but if I could, I’d snap your neck right now,” he said quietly. He’d regret it because he did like the man, but he’d do it in a heartbeat and feel fine, especially with no soul to bother him.

“I almost wish you could,” the human said with a twisted little smile. “Death might be preferable to some of the outfits I’ve found myself wearing after one of her ‘visits’.”

Despite the joke, Spike was pretty sure he was serious. _Don’t really blame him,_ he thought, absently lowering his head slightly to sniff his girl. Still smelled really good, though the urge to eat her was only barely there and the one to turn her completely gone. He nuzzled her cheek. _Always has to wonder when his body will be taken over by some crazy bitch. Poor sod. At least the body changes too. No worries about bein’ directly blamed for what she’s done._

“Doesn’t seem like much we can –” He trailed off, head tilted thoughtfully as he remembered something he’d been thinking of earlier. “There might be somethin’ we can do, after all, mate.”

“What do you mean?” Ben asked, a cautious tone to his voice, like hee wanted to believe there was a way out, but couldn’t quite let himself.

“Slayers have these prophetic dreams, yeah? Got to see one meant for the sprog that had you in it, getting somethin’ locked inside you. Might be there-”

Spike stopped abruptly as Buffy walked into the room. Yesterday, he would have gone to her and cuddled her close, but yesterday had been a very different day. Yesterday, she hadn’t been forced by the ritual to abandon her friends to Glory during a mission to rescue him that had gone all sixes and sevens. Yesterday, he hadn’t eaten anyone since before the chip, and he’d still been sharing Thursday’s soul. Yesterday, he’d been more or less sure of his place in her life. Today… well, today, he’d bollocksed things right up, hadn’t he?

Ben looked at Buffy and then back at him. “I think you two need some time to talk,” he said quietly as he moved towards the door. He hesitated a moment. “My… sister… should be out of town for at least a day or two.”

Then he was gone, leaving Spike alone with the Slayer.

 

**…**

 

Buffy opened her mouth to ask what that had been about Ben’s sister, then stopped and shook her head. It really wasn’t important, not with everything that had happened. Her mom getting clonked on the head had apparently led to them finding something wrong that could have killed her. Getting that taken care of was very much of the good. She’d rescued Spike and the baby. Her friends had gotten out of Glory’s home alive.

Alive, but not whole. God, Willow. Sick despair welled up at the thought of her friend, and all of their arguments suddenly seemed petty and stupid. Yeah, Willow had messed up and needed to learn that there were consequences, but when she’d called, Willow had come to help her rescue a vampire. And now she was missing part of her arm. If Ben hadn’t been there, she would have died from blood loss.

She frowned in confusion. Just how _had_ Ben ended up there in the nick of time? _And why didn’t I wonder about that before?_ she thought uneasily. He shouldn’t have been there at all, much less that soon. How had…? What…? What had she been thinking about again? Her thoughts felt fuzzy. Before she could gather her them up again, the baby started fussing, drawing her attention.

Spike was pacing in agitation, lightly jiggling the baby in an effort to calm her while staring at her like he was afraid she’d vanish. He seemed to be doing a little bit better, and his insides weren’t in imminent danger of falling out anymore, but he still looked pretty bad.

His eyes were bloodshot, he was really twitchy, his usually slicked back curls looked like they’d staged a violent rebellion against the rest of him for their freedom, and he was obviously exhausted and in pain. There was something _off_ about it all, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it with everything else swirling through her brain.

Despite Spike’s murmured reassurances that everything was alright, the baby’s fussing turned into full blown crying. That was something she could actually do something about. Something that could be fixed with actions instead of thinky thoughts or words.

“She’s probably hungry again,” Buffy said, taking a step towards Spike and reaching out for the baby.

Spike jerked back and growled at her, his eyes widening slightly as if he were just as surprised by it as she was. Maybe he was. Tara had said his aura was starting to repair itself, but he still seemed really out of it. He took a deep breath before muttering an apology and carefully passing the infant over to her.

She sat down, managing to get her t-shirt off without dropping the baby. It would have been easier to have Spike hold her, but Buffy wasn’t entirely sure she’d get her back without resorting to violence. Spike had been kidnapped twice and horribly assaulted at least once. He really didn’t need to be on the receiving end of any more violence tonight.

Shirt and bra off, Buffy carefully positioned the baby so the base of her head was tucked into the crook of her arm. _Okay, you can do this,_ she told herself. She’d practiced on a doll with her mother’s supervision and had managed to give the baby a little bit of a feeding earlier with Tara’s help, but doing it alone with a squirming, unhappy, living thing was very different.

 _Okay, baby tucked against tummy, check. Lift boob and keep thumb and fingers off areola_. She looked down at herself and moved her fingers down. _Okay, all of that’s a check. Now, bring baby closer and nudge her lips with the nipple until the mouth opens._

The baby shrieked and turned her face away before Buffy could do anything about the open mouth. _Argh! Stupid, uncooperative baby. Must get that from her father,_ she thought. Then she felt bad for calling her baby stupid.

“Might be the heartbeat,” Spike said suddenly. He was still pacing, but somehow managing to do it while keeping an eye on the baby. “I haven’t got one, so she’s not used to hearin’ any but her own.”

“Come on, baby,” Buffy said soothingly. It seemed to help a little bit. Maybe from all of the times when she’d waited for Spike to fall asleep before talking to the baby. From the look on his face, she had the sudden feeling he hadn’t actually been asleep some of those times. Her cheeks heated in embarrassment, but she pushed it away. There was nothing embarrassing about putting your head against your pregnant boyfriend and talking to his tummy. It was perfectly normal. Probably. Well, except for the boyfriend part. “Come on, open up for mommy.”

She wiggled her breast, tickling the baby’s lips until the mouth _finally_ opened. Then Buffy smooshed the baby’s head against her breast. The nipple was in there, but it didn’t feel quite right. The baby’s angry yowl supported that, so she tried again. And again.

“You’re half vampire and a baby,” she muttered, trying yet again. “You should be an expert at sucking fluids out of people.”

There was a snort of amusement from Spike, which had her thinking about vampires and fluids. He had fed directly from a human. A dead one, but still…. She frowned suddenly as the thought that had been niggling at the back of her mind finally crystalized. He’d had a full body’s worth of fresh human blood, but hadn’t really done much healing until he’d gotten a couple of transfusion bags into him. Why…?

Baby gums clamping down with surprising strength on her nipple jolted Buffy out of her thoughts, and she gritted her teeth to keep from yelping. Why had she wanted to do this, again? Oh, right, to bond with the baby. Lots of women bonded just fine with bottles, though, didn’t they? She put her finger in the little mouth to get her to let go, then resettled and tried again. _There_. Just right.

Buffy sighed as the baby started suckling. _Totally worth it,_ she thought, gazing down at her daughter with a tender smile. Hormones were awesome. She felt really good and calmly happy. Kind of like a cat stretching out in the sunlight after a big bowl of cream. She was very Zen and all inner-peacey.

She watched Spike pace, almost wishing the ritual had given him magic boobies to go along with the baby. He needed to calm down, and nursing would have been a big help with that. He ran his hands through his hair in agitation, the fingers that usually smothered the curls with gel a temporary ally against the few remaining pockets of enemy resistance. Maybe she’d hide his hair gel when they got home and give The Curly Republic of Spike’s Head a chance to flourish.

“The rules still apply,” he said abruptly. “It doesn’t matter that… that you don’t….” His voice cracked and he had to stop for a moment, taking deep breaths to calm himself. “It don’t matter how you feel about me now. The bloody rules still apply.”

He was looking in her direction, but his gaze was glued to the baby so he didn’t see Buffy’s confusion. How she felt about him now? The rules? What the hell was he talking about?

“I know I messed up, and that I don’t have….” He stopped again, obviously struggling with what he was trying to say. “I’ll do my part to take care of her. I’m good at taking care of people. One of the few things I don’t bollocks up on a regular basis.”

Once she figured out what he was talking about, Buffy’s first instinct, even with the baby nursing, was to punch him in the nose. He thought she didn’t love him anymore. How could he think that? Oh, right. She remembered how harsh she’d been after he’d blurted out that the woman had been dead before he’d eaten her. And then there was the fact that – while she’d started falling for him while he was soulless – their relationship had started to really deepen after the baby’s soul had begun influencing him.

The soul issue they’d have to slowly work out together, but the dead woman was a five-ton elephant that needed to be cleared out of the room as soon as possible. She’d finally figured it out. It hadn’t helped with the wound that had practically disemboweled – disembabied? – him because he’d fed on her _before_ Dru had cut him open. When he’d still been sharing the baby’s soul.

He’d kept a lot of things to himself, but she’d been there for most of his nightmares. When he had let her, she’d held him while he cried over the people he’d killed. He would have been horrified by taking the woman’s blood, even though he hadn’t been the one who killed her. It wouldn’t be affecting him like that now, but he’d still _remember_ feeling that way. That had to be confusing and upsetting.

Spike was still talking, something about moving down into the basement eventually, but that for right now, he needed to be wherever the baby was, and it was too damp down there for her. Buffy knew she needed to reassure him somehow, but words would just tangle things up. She needed to hug him or something, which would be hard with the baby nursing. She looked down at her daughter. She’d fallen asleep, but was still occasionally sucking.

 _Just tell him you love him, you dope,_ she told herself with a mental eye roll. It would be easy. Just open her mouth and let the words come out. Words she hadn’t said since Angel. Right. Okay. She could do this.

“Spike, I….”

And, of course, that was when Xander opened the door. She squeaked and tried to cover her chest with her shirt without dropping the baby while Xander took a step back and covered his eyes.

“Oh jeez, sorry Busty… _Buffy_. I didn’t see anything, I swear.”

“It’s okay now,” she said once everything was either covered with shirt or baby.

They really needed a name for her. Celia was off the table, obviously, but Thursday was just so _weird_. Then again, as much as she loved the name her mother had given her, she had to admit that Buffy wasn’t exactly normal. William was, but he went by Spike. Why should their kid be called something normal? And, well… Spike had gone through a _lot_ to bring this baby into the world. It seemed kind of heartless to just toss aside the name he’d chosen.

Xander peeked through his fingers, then slowly lowered his hand. “I’m, uh, heading to the Magic Box to let Anya know about how things turned out,” he said. “I just.... I wanted you to know, so you wouldn’t think….” That I ran off on you. It went unsaid, but it hovered in the air between them. “Willow….” He paused to take a shuddering breath. “When they were loading her into the ambulance, she asked me for some things. She, um… she was in shock, so she probably won’t actually want the things, but…. I thought….”

“You,” she had to stop and clear her throat before she could continue, “you want her to know you were there, and you listened.”

Xander nodded jerkily and turned to go. Then he turned back and looked at Buffy. “It wasn’t your fault.” He glanced at Spike. “Not yours either.”

Then he was gone.

 

**…**

 

“Spike….” He was pacing again, though now it was in Buffy’s room instead of the hospital. She’d given up trying to talk to him there, but she was starting to think waiting had been a bad idea. “Spike, you need to put the baby in her bassinet, okay?”

It would be the first time she was put to bed. She’d had so many firsts. Crossing the threshold – she’d been worried that the baby would need an invite, but she apparently counted as human in that regard – going up the stairs (she’d been terrified that Spike would drop the baby, no matter how securely she was being held), and then bringing her into the room.

Spike eyed her warily and held Thursday a little closer. The baby seemed to be getting at least a little bit used to Buffy’s heartbeat, but she obviously preferred the swishy Rolex of the vampire version of circulation to the ticky watch of humanity.

“You need to get some sleep,” she said firmly. God, it _hurt_ , watching him continue to push himself. “Thursday will be okay in the bassinet. Really.”

He looked at her, obviously confused and startled. “You…. Why…?” Several emotions flashed across his expressive face, as if he couldn’t decide if her using that name was a good thing or a bad thing.

Buffy sighed in frustration. Why was this so hard? It shouldn’t be this hard. “This is so stupid,” she muttered. “There’s a hellgod on the loose who thinks our baby is the key she’s after, and I’m just standing here trying to figure out how to say three words.”

“Glory won’t be a bother for a couple days,” Spike said quietly, head tilted slightly as he watched her. “Buffy….”

She slowly walked over to him and pressed her hand against his cheek as she looked into his eyes, letting her touch and gaze convey what she couldn’t get her mouth to say. _I love you._ He stared at her, looking like he was going to say something or cry but doing neither. He closed his eyes with a shudder of utter exhaustion – both physical and emotional – and nuzzled her palm.

“Put Thursday in the bassinet, and let’s go to bed,” she said softly.

Spike opened his eyes and nodded, though he stared at the bassinet for a moment before hesitantly settling the tightly swaddled baby down in it. She wanted to know how he knew they had breathing room when it came to Glory, but she was afraid to push him right now. She’d just have to trust him. It… wasn’t easy. Her father, Angel, and Riley had made it hard for her to trust men, but she could do it. She’d trust Spike.

It felt… weird, as they snuggled into bed together. His body was different from the last time they’d lain together. She didn’t know what to do with her hand. She usually splayed it out across his belly, but that would just hurt him right now, and would feel strange without the baby there. Maybe…. She spooned against his back, resting her hand on his hip. Not quite right, but it would work. She nuzzled his neck, breathing in the scent of him.

“Think I know a way to stop the hellbitch,” he mumbled.

“You _what_?” Buffy sat up abruptly and lightly shook Spike when he didn’t answer. “Spike?”

“Mmneh. Dream….” He mumbled something else, but it was too garbled for Buffy to make out. She shook him again, but he was so deeply asleep that he wasn’t even breathing.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. They had a day or two to rest and recuperate. God knew they needed it. She gently stroked Spike’s hair before settling back down. They’d take the time to lick their wounds, and then the hellbitch was going down.

 

**…**

 

There was pain, but it didn’t really matter. Willow was all floaty and comfortable, and the pain was a flittery little butterfly. _Flutter by, butterfly_ , she thought vaguely. She closed her eyes for what seemed like just a second, but when she opened them again, Xander was there.

“Hey, Will,” he said softly, flashing her a wobbly smile. “I… uh… I brought you the books you asked for. From the safe. Are… are you sure you want these? They have all kinds of scary titles with dark and forbidden in them.”

She blinked and smiled weakly at him. She sort of remembered asking for the books. He’d listened. He was still her friend despite seemingly siding with Buffy over things. “Is okay. Jus’ wor’s to keep people away,” she slurred. “Leave ‘em on th’ bed.”

“Yeah, okay.” He carefully opened up a backpack and pulled out four books, placing them on the bed so she could reach them with her good hand….

Good hand. _Only_ hand. She knew that should have hurt to think about, but that was too much effort. Everything was.... Her eyes fluttered closed, then open. She was all alone. Where was Xander? There he was, sitting in the chair. Where was Tara? Oh, right, she’d sent Tara away. Said she was too tired for visitors and that she worried about Miss Kitty being all alone. She hadn’t wanted Tara there if Xander had brought the books. She wouldn’t understand.

“Could,” she coughed to clear her throat and tried again. “Could you get me some ice water?”

Xander blinked sleepily and nodded. “Yeah, sure thing, Will,” he said, getting up.

Once he was gone, Willow struggled to open the nearest book. The magic was sluggish, but it came to her call, pulling even more magic out of the book, filling her with more energy than it took to harvest it. The next book was easier. The next even more so. She was smiling as she drained the last book, her hair and eyes pitch black.

By the time Xander came back with the ice water, she looked normal again. Normal… she wasn’t normal. She was _better_ than normal.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter has a bit of kink in it.

 

Tara tried to focus on the task at hand rather than the fact that Willow had sent her away last night. _She… she probably just didn’t want you to see how hurt she was,_ she told herself. Sometimes people got like that. They needed to grieve away from their loved ones.

And Willow _would_ be grieving. Glory had mangled the other part of her arm after ripping it off. There had never been any chance of attaching the battered remains again. If she felt like she had to be strong with Tara there, then the emotional healing would be stunted by her presence. She had to keep that in mind.

She took a deep breath and started taking notes again. Across the table from her, Giles was doing the same while on the phone with a coven in Devon. They were working on creating a spell to use Dawn’s energy as the key to firmly lock Glory into her human host. Even if they hadn’t been inclined to believe Spike’s story, Buffy had backed what he’d said about the slayer dream, though he’d apparently seen the mystery host clearly while the man had been blurry to the actual slayer.

“Nothing in here to help keep Glory at bay while you guys make with the spell-making,” Xander said with a grimace as he closed the book he’d been reading. His lips twitched slightly into an actual smile as he glanced over at Spike. “Maybe we can bottle new baby smell and lob a grenade of that at her next time she gets close. It seems to be working on distracting Spike.”

“Sod off,” the new daddy muttered, but his heart obviously wasn’t in it.

Tara felt a smile of her own tugging at her mouth. Spike was sitting with his sleeping daughter cradled against his chest, lightly sniffing her from time to time. The warming amulet Tara and Willow had made for him was resting on the infant, keeping her – along with the blankets swaddled around her – from getting chilled.

Buffy and Dawn were sitting on either side of him, the latter looking both miserable and focused as she pored through the books. Poor Dawnie. It had to be hard, knowing her niece was being targeted by a hellgod in her place. As if somehow aware of being thought about, Thursday woke up and began fussing.

Buffy hurriedly got up, slinging a diaper bag over her shoulder and grabbing the empty baby carrier. “Have to get her fed before she falls asleep again,” she explained while Spike stood up and headed towards the training room with the baby. She frowned slightly and looked at Tara. “Is… is that normal?”

“Yeah, it’s normal,” Tara said reassuringly. It was weirdly sweet, seeing the slayer just as uncertain and nervous as any of the new mothers she’d seen when helping her own mother. “Newborns need a lot of sleep. Just get as much into her as you can.”

Buffy nodded her thanks for the information as she headed back into the training room.

Tara turned back to her research and note taking, even more determined than before. _Dawn and Thursday are innocents. If there’s anything I can do to help keep them safe, I’m going to do it,_ she vowed.

The spell she was currently looking at – one that allowed the user to temporarily lock away their fears and doubts – was useless in and of itself, but it had some promising elements. Symbols of fear were locked into a box using a key wrapped in a strand of the caster’s hair. They would be dealing with some pretty powerful forces, and the best way to deal with those was through symbolism.

_Blood is life,_ Spike had said when they’d discussed how the key’s energy was supposed to open a portal for Glory now that it was a young girl. Tara looked at the notes she’d taken when Spike and Buffy had told them about the dream. Buffy had used the key to cut her hand. Blood was life and the key to using the key.

If Dawn’s blood was spilled at just the right place, all the dimensional doors would open until it stopped flowing. So… if she could be used to lock a door, did that mean it would stay locked as long as her blood flowed, either out of her body or within it?

Dawn’s blood. Buffy’s blood. Dawn had been made as Buffy’s sister. Could Buffy be used as a sort of conduit to channel the raw power of the key? Ideas started to swirl and bubble, but her train of thought was derailed by the jingling of the bell above the door. She looked up, confusion, love, and anger buzzing through her at the sight of Willow.

What was she doing out of the hospital? She shouldn’t be there. She was going to hurt herself even worse. Tara’s gaze immediately went from her lover’s face to her injured arm, the anger rising to fury while at the same time being overshadowed by dread.

_Oh god, Willow, what have you done?_ Chills and heat raced through Tara’s body while nausea roiled in her gut. The arm hadn’t been regrown, but the stump was cleanly sealed over, without even a hint of scarring. Light magic could help the body heal and accelerate the process, but this…. It was too much, too soon.

Magic always had a price. When it was used carefully and with all due respect, the cost came from your own power or a specific focus object. If it was used wrong…. Tara shuddered at the thought.

Willow had made a lot of mistakes with magic, mostly due to too much power and not enough grounding in the basics. Tara had tried to gently guide her onto a more stable path, but now…. She took a deep breath and pushed it aside. Bringing it up now was only going to put Willow on the spot and make her defensive. Later though, they were going to talk.

Tara didn’t like conflict, but she would do it. She would be strong. For love. For Willow.

 

**…**

 

Spike was doing that pacing while watching thing again. Buffy understood. Really, she did. Thursday had basically been stolen from him. She’d been given back, but still, she’d been taken away from him against his will when it wasn’t even time yet. That had to massively trip the protective instincts, even against her. That didn’t mean she was particularly happy about getting the hairy eyeball whenever she was holding their daughter. Especially considering, of the two of them, he was the only one who had ever actually _eaten_ a baby before.

_Not a good thing to think about right now,_ she thought with a wince. She was still feeling all jumbled up, and he had to be wondering why she hadn’t offered him any of her blood last night to help him heal. He was still badly enough injured that he was wearing a kilt and sweater even though he’d been eying a pair of his jeans earlier.

_I should bury those and his hair gel in the backyard. Maybe the sweaters and all of his t-shirts, too._ Half-naked Spike lounging around was a very nice thought. And one she shouldn’t be focusing on right now. Spike was a vampire, and vampires ate people. It was just what they did. Before the baby’s soul had started influencing him, he’d fought against his own nature for her and had kept himself from eating any of the bleeding troll victims. With the soul, he’d eaten a dead woman.

Which, well… it wasn’t exactly _evil_ , but it was awful and disrespectful. _And you know it had to have hurt him to do that. He needed to do it. Let it go._ That was easier thought than done. If Willow or Xander had had to eat a dead person to survive, would she blame them for it? No. She’d feel sick that they had been put in that in situation. She’d probably just joke that they needed a gallon or two of mouth wash before breathing in her general direction, but she wouldn’t blame them or be disgusted by them. Spike had been put in a horrible situation that had hurt him at the time and was probably confusing him now.

Buffy took a deep breath and looked down at her daughter. She was asleep again, her mouth still latched on to Buffy’s breast but not really suckling anymore. She gently slid her finger between the little mouth and her own flesh, breaking the suction. Spike took a step towards her to take Thursday, but she turned away from him and knelt down to put the baby in her carrier.

“Buffy,” he protested.

“She’s fine in the carrier. She isn’t going to vanish,” _in a puff of smoke._ She just barely kept herself from saying that, “if you aren’t personally holding her.”

She quickly crossed over to where the weapons were and pulled out a knife. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Spike tense, then wince in pain as it pulled at his wound. Part of her thought he kind of deserved it for thinking she was going to hurt the baby while the rest thought she was being a bitch. He couldn’t help it if the forced visit to Dr. Dru’s Crappy C-Section Emporium had left him with some psychological issues. Hell, considering the whole crappy C-section thing, he might not even be thinking she was going to use it on the baby.

_He’s probably getting all kinds of nasty flashbacks,_ she thought guiltily. She’d been planning to do this closer to him, but approaching with a knife seemed like a really, _really_ bad idea. She slid the edge along the side of her throat before dropping it to the ground – she’d clean it up and put it away properly later – and slowly walking towards Spike.

She definitely had his full and undivided attention. He swallowed convulsively a couple of times as she approached, wide eyes fixed on her blood.

“Buffy, you –”

She silenced him with a gentle finger against his lips. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “Last night…. So much had been happening, we were both pretty wiped out, and….” She took a deep breath and dropped her hand. “I was confused. I’m not as confused today.”

“I tried, you know,” he said softly. “To stop Dru from killing that girl. She… she wouldn’t listen.”

Of course he had. She should have realized that. Before he could say anything else, she slid her hand into his hair and pressed his head down towards her neck. Her eyes fluttered closed as his tongue gently caressed her skin, lapping away the blood. Tongue and lips and blunt human teeth, all worked at the wound, drawing blood from her while setting her entire body aflame. She lost herself in sensation, her body tingling and pulsing, until – with one last, lingering swipe of his tongue – Spike pulled back.

“We’re not done here, yet,” she said huskily, reaching down to unbuckle his belt and pull it free. Then she was the one to pull away as she folded the belt in half and snapped it experimentally. “You’ve been a naughty boy, Spike. You didn’t change a single diaper last night.”

She watched the emotions play across his expressive face. Confusion, indignation (since he’d woken every single time Thursday had and been all but forced to go back to sleep), uncertainty, something like thankful wonder, and then a slow smirk. He knew what she was doing. Knew that – while she wasn’t flat out opposed to it – it wasn’t her kink.

“That so, Slayer?” he asked. “Going to punish me then?” One brow lazily rose. “Think you’re woman enough for the job?”

“Oh yeah,” she purred, grabbing his arm and leading him towards the pommel horse. He was already looking better, but he was still hurt. She didn’t want to make it worse. “Lean down and take your punishment. If you’re a good boy, maybe I’ll reward you.”

He shivered at the tone of her voice and leaned down until his hands rested on the pommel horse. She slowly circled around, swinging the belt, until she was behind him again. Then she flipped up the kilt, taking a moment to admire his ass before she smacked it with the belt. His entire body jerked with the blow, and he made that not-pain sound that meant he actually _was_ hurting but enjoying it.

“Like that, huh?” she asked as the belt whistled through the air a second time. “The pain is good, isn’t it? It means you can be forgiven.”

_Good girls don’t do things like this,_ an insidious little voice whispered as she swung the belt yet again. She pushed the thought away. She wasn’t a good girl. She wasn’t a bad girl. With Spike, she was just Buffy.

“We’ll beat it all out of you. Make everything better.” She hit him again, excitement speeding her breath into ragged little pants.

This wasn’t her kink. She didn’t really get off on hurting people. But doing something for Spike that he liked? Oh yeah, that got her. And… she felt a little bit better about things. Like some of the buried guilt over loving a vampire was being smoothed away. He was trying to be a better person for _her_. He had become hers, was turning himself inside out to be good. All because of her.

She hit him one last time, then turned him around and lightly pushed him down onto the end of the pommel horse. He was panting, his eyes glazed and all pupil as he stared at her. God, he was beautiful. She tangled her fingers in his hair and forced his head back before claiming his mouth in a searing kiss. _Mine,_ her tongue said as it demanded entrance. And, _I love you_ , as it slipped past his parted lips.

_Always_ , Spike answered without words, his hands roaming feverishly over her body. _Love you, too._

She leaned into him, swallowing down his startled cry of pain as they fell to the floor. She broke the kiss, pushing his sweater up to press feather light brushes of her lips against the wound, soothing the pain. Soothing away all of the pain, both inside and out as they joined together.

 

**…**

 

It was more than a little bit awkward, having only one hand when you were used to two. _I can do this. Everything is okay,_ Willow thought, using magic to turn the page while she made notes on the spells she was researching. Tara kept giving her strange looks, like she was upset or something.

_I shouldn’t have sent her away,_ she thought guiltily. Their magic was always stronger together. Heck, maybe they could have even grown her arm back. Magic was magic. Big scary words like “dark” and “forbidden” didn’t _actually_ mean anything. Now that she wasn’t all drugged up, Willow was sure she could have convinced Tara of that. Last night, though, that had seemed impossible.

She looked at the stump and fought back nausea. A piece of her was _missing_. Her mouth got that too wet feeling that came before vomiting. She’d been pretty out of it after Glory had ripped her arm off, but she clearly remembered the hellgod tearing at the limb like it was a newspaper she was turning into confetti.

Willow took a slow, deep breath, ready to assure everyone she was fine when they asked. Except… no one did. Tara looked almost scared, Xander seemed jittery, Dawn was hyper focused on the research, and Giles was still on the phone.

And then, of course, there was Buffy. Okay, yeah, so she’d been in the training room with Spike and the baby when Willow had come to the shop, but why wasn’t she out yet? It couldn’t take this long to feed a baby, could it? What was she doing in there while her friends – who she had just put in terrible danger the night before – were doing research to save her kid from being mistaken for being what her fake little sister actually was?

Willow glanced towards the training room door with a frown and murmured the words to a spell to let her see what was going on in there. She really wished she hadn’t. Her arm was _gone_ , but she’d still come to help. Buffy should have been helping too, but she was… she was…. Willow surged to her feet and bolted to the bathroom to be very noisily sick.

 

**…**

 

Spike fought off drowsiness as he held Buffy in his arms. He buried his nose in her hair and breathed in her scent. He felt… well, not really cleaner or anything, since he hadn’t exactly felt dirty, but…. Lighter, maybe. Like a weight had been lifted, and the weird confusion and guilt over not feeling guilty had lessened a bit.

He’d thought he’d lost her over that. That his own weakness and idiocy had driven her away. She shifted, her leg sliding between his thighs. He didn’t need it to be comfortable anymore, but it still felt good. His eyes drifted closed, and he let himself just bask for a little bit.

He had loved Dru – still did in a way – and she had loved him as much as she could. _As much as she could…._ Poor mad, broken Dru. Buffy was damaged, too, a lot of it from the same bastard. She was strong, though, and she hadn’t broken. It’d be a struggle for her to say it, but she could still feel it. She could love. And she loved him.

Could he love her? Well, yeah, ‘course he could. He did. Sprog was proof of that if nothing else. But… it felt a little different. He’d gotten close to her while sharing the sprog’s soul. Now that was gone, and it felt like a layer was missing. What he’d felt before and he felt now were just as real, but it was like an onion that had been peeled a bit. Still oniony and all and bloody fantastic battered up and fried, but there were bits missing.

He opened his eyes and pulled away just enough to get his elbow under himself so he could gaze down at her. She’d fallen asleep, looking peaceful and happy. He gently stroked her cheek. God, she was beautiful. He leaned in even closer, intending to kiss her awake so they could go back to the others. That, of course, was when Thursday woke up and began to cry.

He snorted and shook his head before carefully untangling himself from Buffy. Seemed like it was time for him to change his first nappy. God, he really _was_ turning into a bloody white hat, wasn’t he?

He carefully stood up and went over to Thursday, humming softly as he picked her up. “Hush now, love,” he murmured.

His thoughts drifted through the events of the past several months. The ritual, finding out about Thursday, realizing he’d fallen in love with the Slayer, the whole mess with Glory and Dru.... _Might be turning into a sodding white hat, but at least things aren’t all boring like_ , he thought philosophically. He glanced over at the Slayer’s sleeping form. That one would definitely keep him on his toes, she would. It was going to be a hell of a ride.


	32. Chapter 32

Buffy stared down at the research table. Most of the books had been put away, leaving pages of notes, diagrams, the Dagon sphere, a dagger, and various crystals and powders strewn across the surface. After nearly an entire day of phone calls and faxes to and from the coven in Devon and a lot of research, they had a plan. They were going to make sure that Glory couldn’t escape her meaty prison anymore, and Buffy’s sister and baby would be safe.

 _Or as safe as she can be,_ she thought, her gaze drawn to Spike. She’d managed to convince him to leave Thursday in the carrier for a while, but he was holding her again. It wasn’t exactly a _bad_ thing – her mom, Tara, Ben, and most of the baby books all agreed that babies needed cuddles to thrive – but being that obsessive and hyper-focused didn’t seem like it’d be good for Spike, especially after everything he’d been through.

Thursday looked so tiny and fragile cradled against his chest. He was only using one arm to hold her while he dipped a finger into a thermos cup full of blood and slid it into her mouth. What if he dropped her?

That opened the floodgates, and a thousand other what-ifs poured in. What if she accidentally snapped the baby’s neck while nursing her? Or smothered her with her boobs? Okay, Tara had told her that babies had those adorable little pug noses to make that less likely, but that didn’t mean it was impossible. What if Spike got really hungry some day and accidentally ate her in his sleep? Or held her too tightly?

Buffy was the Slayer and Spike was a vampire. Their lives were full of violence and destruction. They were made to break things. How the hell were they supposed to take care of something as breakable as a baby without… well, breaking it?

 _Why don’t newborns came packaged with user manuals?_ she wondered, partially serious. In most cases that really wasn’t an option, but the damn ritual had been able to get a dead guy pregnant. Why couldn’t it have stuffed a manual into him along with the baby? Maybe you only got that if the baby came out the way it was supposed to.

Buffy took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Okay. Focus. She needed to focus on the here and now, not on what-ifs. “Okay. The plan. We have a plan. What exactly is it?” she asked.

Tara opened her mouth to explain, but Willow jumped in before her girlfriend could say anything. “Glory’s host is already a vessel. We just need to make the Dagon sphere a keyhole and use Dawn’s energy to lock Glory all up.” She picked up a drawing with notes all over it and handed it to Buffy. “This is what you’ll be doing while I do the spe-”

“The hell you are,” Spike snapped, glaring at Willow. “Tara’s doing the spell, not you.”

Things had been weird and tense since Buffy had come back from the training room that first time to find Willow there with the others. She’d been both relieved and confused at the sight of her friend out of the hospital with what looked like a few months’ worth of healing.

The half-scared, half-angry glances from Tara and the tight-lipped concern from Giles towards Willow had left Buffy thinking maybe the miracle healing wasn’t as much of the good as she’d thought. The fact that Willow kept looking at her with a mix of disgust, resentment and perkiness had just added to the general feeling of unease and uber wigginess.

“ _You_ don’t get a say in this,” Willow told Spike with a glare of her own.

Once, she’d been the one who was sort of sympathetic to Spike while Xander had hated him. A lot of things had turned topsy-turvy in the five months since the ritual. _Nothing is ever really going to be the same again, is it?_ Buffy realized. She felt numb, watching the last vestiges of childhood begin to slip away.

“He’s right, Will,” she said quietly. “Tara is doing the spell. Not you.”

Hurt, outrage, disbelief, betrayal. All that and more in Willow’s eyes as they met Buffy’s. “So, what, you’re just ditching your friends because you’re having secret, freaky sex with Spike?” Guilt at her outburst joined the other emotions, followed by confusion when no one immediately reacted to it.

“Is it the freaky part or the sex part that was supposed to be a secret?” Anya asked into the uncomfortable silence with a puzzled frown. “Because, well, I kind of thought everyone knew about the sex. It was obvious.” She paused for a moment, considering. “The freaky part, too, really. I mean, he _is_ a vampire.”

Willow slowly looked at everyone gathered there. “You all….” She looked back at Buffy. “You told….”

Buffy’s heart ached. She hadn’t really _told_ anyone other than her mom, Dawn, and Tara… and, well, Ben (who totally didn’t count since he was her therapist), but it didn’t change the fact that Willow – the girl who had been her best friend since she’d come to Sunnydale – was the last to know. Finding out like this after what had happened…. God, no wonder she was hostile towards Spike.

They’d gone to Glory’s to rescue him, and then Buffy had abandoned them all to rescue him from someone else. It was darkly, sickeningly funny, but if Spike had done the selfish thing – turning Dawn over to Glory – things probably would have turned out better. _There’s no guarantee of that. Willow might have been hurt even if I’d been there._ That didn’t matter, though. There would always be that big, looming what-if.

Part of her wanted to change her mind, to tell Willow that of course she was going to be the one doing the spell. She was their big guns. She was powerful and capable, even with one arm. It was all true, but….

She took a breath. “I’m sorry, Willow. I didn’t mean to leave you out. It just sort of happened. It doesn’t change anything, though. Tara’s going to do the spell, and it has nothing to do with Spike.”

“Then _why_?” Willow practically wailed.

“You can’t fix babies with cookies. No matter how many you bake, if something goes wrong and Glory ends up breaking Thursday, she’s gonna stay broke.”

“That’s not fai-” Willow stopped midword, looking pale and sick. She’d lifted her injured arm to gesture with. “You trusted my magic when it came to keeping Xander and Giles safe, and I paid the price for it.”

Guilt stabbed at Buffy. Willow was absolutely right. She’d trusted her to keep them all safe…. And Willow hadn’t been able to do it. She hadn’t been able to save herself.

“You’ve been hurt really bad, and I’m sorry for that. I’d do anything to change it if I could, but I can’t. I failed you, and I’m sorry.” She had to stop for a moment. God, this was painful. It had to be even worse for Willow. She almost wished someone else would step in and say what needed to be said, but they all seemed to know this was between the two of them. “You tend to mess up when you’re distracted. You’ve been my best friend pretty much since day one here on the Hellmouth, and I love you, but you need to go home. Let the rest of us handle this.”

Willow’s kicked-puppy face was heartbreaking, but not as much as the thought of something happening to the baby. If you failed a test, you could always take it again. If you failed to stop some evil thing the first time you came across it, you could usually try again, as long as you survived. If Buffy failed with Thursday, that was an innocent little life snuffed out or ruined forever.

“You….” Willow stopped and swallowed. “You can’t make Tara do th-”

“They aren’t going to make me.” Tara sounded miserable but confident. “I’m going to help. And then….” Her voice broke. “When I get home, we, we have to talk. The magic you used... it isn’t safe.”

Willow’s face crinkled up as she fought back tears. She glanced around the table, waiting for someone else to say something. Xander wouldn’t meet her eyes. “You’ve been through a lot, Wills,” he said. “You should rest.”

Willow opened and closed her mouth, then swallowed hard before turning and leaving the store with as much dignity as she could manage. Buffy watched her go, fighting the urge to call her back. Things had been rocky with Willow since the ritual, but she’d always held on to hope that things could go back. Their friendship wasn’t dead – at least she didn’t think it was. Not fully – but she knew it would never be the same.

She closed her eyes and took a long, cleansing breath before opening them again. It was time to get down to business and take care of Glory. “Spike, how soon can you can get Glory’s host here?”

“Shouldn’t be too long. Maybe twenty minutes after I give him a ring.” He stood up, still holding the baby, and walked towards her. “Your turn to watch the sprog for a bit.”

She stared at him and then down at Thursday as he carefully handed her over. It was the first time he’d done it without the baby being hungry, and even those times, he’d hesitated slightly. This time, there was no hesitation at all.

 

**…**

 

Fury and hurt rode Willow as she stormed into the dorm room she shared with Tara. Miss Kitty meowed in greeting, but she was too upset to really pay attention. She went into the bathroom, unthinkingly trying to take her shirt off with both hands.

She stared at her right hand and at the place where her left would have been if there was anything below her elbow. Gone. Gone forever. All because Buffy had called and asked for her help rescuing a vampire. She’d always kind of liked Spike – it had been oddly endearing when he’d cried on her shoulder over Drusilla and that whole thing where he’d tried to reassure her when he discovered he couldn’t bite – but he was still a vampire, the kind of thing she’d been fighting for years.

She’d come so far in those years. From a mousy little thing to a confident young woman in a loving relationship with another woman. And now…. Now she couldn’t even take her clothes off the way she was used to. Her magic welled up, filling her with power and strength as it washed away the feeling of being weak and broken. She wasn’t some little nobody anymore. She was a powerful witch with magic. She used it to rip the clothing away, leaving her naked.

She stepped into the shower, using more magic to make it just the right temperature. She still had the magic. She didn’t need two hands. She had magic. She didn’t need friends or a lover. She had magic. She…. She dropped down, sitting with her knees against her chest as she sobbed.

 

**…**

 

Dawn focused on Tara’s voice as the woman chanted, the soothing sound a good distraction from the man kneeling in the center of the training room with a paper grocery bag over his head. Apparently, if they saw him they wouldn’t remember that he was Glory, but they could if his head was covered. Weird. _Like most of my life._

“Why is this taking so bloody long?” Spike muttered irritably as he paced back and forth.

It had only been about five minutes since Tara and Giles had put up a barrier around the training room, but Thursday was out in the main part of the shop with Anya and Xander. Dawn wondered if her own dad had been that protective of her when she was a baby. _I never actually_ was _a baby,_ she reminded herself. Technically, she’d never even seen her dad. He’d stopped giving a crap about being a dad by the time she’d been turned into a human. Spike had done more for her than Hank Summers ever had.

“These things mustn’t be rushed,” Giles said. He was standing beside Tara, drawing patterns on Buffy’s face with Dawn’s blood. It was both really gross and kind of neat.

Still chanting in a foreign language, Tara dipped her finger into the small bowl she was holding and began drawing patterns on Dawn’s face with some kind of oil-soaked powder. She couldn’t see them, of course, but they felt a little bit different from what Giles was putting on Buffy. That made sense. Dawn was the key, and Buffy was the conduit.

As each pattern was completed, Dawn felt weirder and weirder, like something inside of her was being twisted and realigned. It wasn’t painful, but it didn’t exactly feel good, either. She kind of felt like she was going to barf if things went on much longer.

Tara drew the final pattern, and there was a moment of sudden, heavy weight as she stopped chanting. Then the whole world was a bathtub drain, whirling and sucking Dawn down before everything abruptly snapped back to normal. Tara smiled reassuringly and led her to her place in the circle made of various powders, crystals, and chalk diagrams.

Buffy stood in front of the kneeling man, both hands wrapped around the handle of the troll hammer. Spike was behind him, holding the Dagon sphere in one hand and a dagger in the other. Giles and Tara took their places on either side of the man – still in the circle but far enough back that they wouldn’t be in the way – and began to chant together, though their words were different.

The man writhed and changed, becoming a woman before their eyes. She got to her feet and ripped the bag away. While she was still disoriented, Buffy swung the hammer, hitting her in the face hard enough to make her stagger.

“How dare you –”

Buffy shut her up by hitting her again. Spike grabbed the woman from behind, holding the Dagon sphere against her chest, right over the heart, his hand curved along the side to leave a space for Buffy’s. She threw the hammer down and slapped her palm against the Dagon sphere, body tensing in preparation as Spike’s voice was added to Tara’s and Giles’s. Then he held the dagger over Buffy’s hand. She put her free hand over his so that she was the one to slam the blade through her own flesh, into the sphere, and then into Glory herself as the sphere began to glow and dissolve.

The world flickered. Dawn felt like she could taste a million different colors, hear the texture of the air, see the chanting as it danced in front of her. She was a spool and her thread was being pulled away. She was unraveling, becoming less and less. Spinning and spinning as she was unspooled, poured into a never ending place that wasn’t as –

Something snapped and recoiled, sending Dawn down to the floor in a dizzy heap.

“Dawnie? Dawn, sweetie?” Buffy was suddenly there, helping her sit up.

“Did… did it work?” Dawn asked weakly.

Buffy smiled and hugged her. It was a good smile, full of happiness and relief. “Yeah, honey, it worked. Glory’s locked away, and Ben is fine.”

Dawn’s jaw dropped. “Ben? Ben’s Glory?” The guy who had done so much to help her sister and Spike had also been their enemy. That was just…. That was too weird.

“Yeah,” Buffy said with a grimace. Then she sighed. “Not his fault, though. He did all he could for us, considering Spike was the only one who would have remembered. But it’s all over now. She’s still in there, but she can’t get out again. He’s free.” She smiled again. “We’re all free.”

Dawn smiled back. Free sounded good. Really good. “Can we get some ice cream?” she asked. Then her eyes rolled up into the back of her head and everything went dark.


	33. Chapter 33

Spike rummaged through the fridge while a mug of blood heated in the microwave, able to use both hands since Thursday was held securely in a baby sling against his chest. He wished Joyce had gotten the sodding thing _before_ The Incident. Bloody cat-footed Summers women, sneaking up on a bloke when he was watching his sprog and startling him enough to bloody well _drop_ her. He’d managed to catch her – by the bloody _ear_ of all things, though it hadn’t (thank God) literally ended up bloody – but it had still been one of the most terrifying moments of his existence.

Half slayer and half vampire, but still just as fragile as any baby, really. Brought Dru to mind and how careful he’d had to be with her after the mob in Prague had gotten a hold of her. A mob that _he’d_ riled up, looking for a spot of “fun.” She’d warned him, of course, but he hadn’t understood in time. He’d always been good at sussing out even the barmiest Dru-speak, but “when bad doggies spill the milk, the bees will sting” didn’t exactly immediately translate into “don’t go stirring up trouble or I’ll pay the price for it.”

Dru…. He still missed her, though he knew that part of his life was over. At least he knew she hadn’t dusted. The letter she’d sent a week or so ago had proved that. Just a simple little note, saying that the white queen had defeated the black, taking the dark knight as her prize. And that little daisy boys needed sunlight to flourish.

She’d conceded defeat. She’d… given up on him. The microwave beeped, pulling him out of his thoughts. _Time to get your head out of your arse, you git,_ he told himself with a snort of disgust. _She didn’t abandon you. She bloody well set you free._

He grabbed a beer and a container of leftover ribs out of the fridge, tucking the beer under his arm to make it easier to carry everything into the living room. Thursday started to fuss just as he sat down. Right on time. From the start, he’d always been able to tell when she needed blood - something in her scent reminding him of a vampire that needed to feed – but after two months, he’d gotten good at anticipating when she’d need it.

“Hush now, kitten,” he murmured to her. “We’re gonna watch some telly and have us a bit of a snack, yeah?”

He settled in, turned the telly on, and dipped a finger into the mug of blood before putting it into her mouth. He could have just put the blood in a bottle or somesuch, but he preferred doing it this way. It was more personal. Besides, having her drink blood out of something meant to represent a nipple seemed like a bad idea.

Thursday gazed up at him as she sucked on his finger, her little face full of recognition and adoration. The urge to turn her, to keep her like this forever, reared its head again, but he was able to push it down easily. He wanted to see her grow up even more than he wanted to keep her as a perfect little dolly guaranteed to always love him. Keeping her like that would get bloody _boring_ honestly. A growing little girl, though? She’d keep him on his toes, always trying to guess who she’d become.

Who she’d become…. God, what a thought. He was going to be an influence in who she turned out to be. What if he bollocksed it all up? He was good at that. He’d failed Dru in Prague, and she’d nearly died. What would happen if he failed Thursday? He was going to, he realized with stark clarity. That was just the way of life. People failed.

She was alive – heartbeat, breath, and all – but Thursday was essentially a vampire with a soul. She craved human blood. They’d tried giving her pig, but she’d screamed and spat it right back up. Thank God for Tara. She’d suggested horse blood. Pointed out that horse milk was very similar to human, and maybe that meant the blood would be tastier than pig. He wasn’t sure if that was why – it could have just been because horses weren’t fed the same kind of crap they tended to give pigs – but the horse was actually pretty good. Both he and the sprog were being weaned to it from the human.

Didn’t matter, though, how good the horse was. Humans would always smell like food to them both. For him, it was a sort of achy loss, knowing he couldn’t hunt and kill humans. For her, though…. She’d think she was a monster, wanting to eat the very people it was her mum’s sacred duty to protect from that sort of thing. As it was now, he remembered how he’d felt about things with her soul. By the time she was old enough for worries, though, that memory would be fuzzy and distant.

The only being who would have any true notion of how she felt would be Angel. The self-centered wanker who liked to wail and gnash his teeth about guilt and how horrible it was while also denying that _he_ was the one who had done any wrong. Thursday would grow up with _that_ as a role model. Unless Spike went through with the idea that had been swimming about in his head for the past two months.

He’d talked about it to Ben – it had been a bit awkward the first few weeks, but the man was still their therapist - but all he had really had to say on the matter was that it was up to Spike. Only he could decide what the right path was in this instance.

He took a deep breath and slowly let it out as he gave Thursday more blood. He let his thoughts bubble along as he fed her, giving her about an ounce of human mixed with horse. Then he watched the telly for a bit, drinking his beer and dunking the barbecue ribs into the rest of the blood like it was extra sauce. He didn’t need human food anymore, but he liked it, and eating it had always been a bit of a comfort. He needed that right now.

If he was going to do it, it needed to be soon. While the pregnancy had been slightly accelerated, Thursday’s development now that she was out and about didn’t seem to be. He’d miss out on something no matter when he left, but if he waited just long for Buffy to finish the spring semester, he shouldn’t miss too many of the major milestones. She could record the small ones for him over the summer.

He finished off the beer, ribs, and blood while he wrestled with the issue, weighing the pros and cons. Finally, he turned the telly off and cleaned up after himself before heading for the stairs. He needed to talk to Buffy and tell her about his decision.

 

**…**

After her post-slayage shower, Buffy had hoped for some snuggly time with Spike and Thursday before she had to make with the studying. Sadly, when she peered into her room she found it empty of both man and baby. She could very faintly hear the TV, which meant he’d probably taken her downstairs for some blood. She really wanted to go down there and join them, but….

“No rest for the wicked…. Or snuggle times for the not-so-wicked,” she muttered with a sigh as she sat down on the bed and opened up one of the text books waiting there for her.

 _Only a couple more days until finals start. Stay focused, Buffy,_ she told herself sternly. She started to read, but her gaze kept creeping from the page and to the empty bassinet. For now, having the baby in the room with them was a good idea, but they already had plans to turn Dawn’s room into a nursery once Spike and Xander finished fixing up the attic for her.

Poor Dawn. First all the key and Glory stuff, then the week-long reaction headache from the spell to lock the hellgod away, and now she was being asked to give up her room for her niece. She’d been really upset about that until Spike had pointed out that her being in the attic was kind of like having her own personal apartment. Her latest demand had been for a skylight, which Xander was already drawing up plans for.

 _And thinking about all this isn’t getting me any closer to passing my finals._ She got down to business, reading and taking notes for about twenty minutes before the door to her room opened. Spike walked in, not looking at her as he went to the bassinet and gently settled Thursday into it. He had a strange expression on his face. A mix of nervous, determined, scared, sort of queasy. She couldn’t quite pin it down.

Dread bubbled unpleasantly in the pit of her stomach. What had happened? The baby seemed fine, so it couldn’t be about her, right? _Is it about me?_ Buffy wondered. Had he decided that he didn’t want her anymore? That he actually would be moving down into the basement – or asking her to – so he could be in the same house as Thursday without having to be with her anymore?

He hadn’t done anything to indicate that he was tired of her, but men had a tendency to leave. She thought of all of the girls she’d known in L.A. who had been raised by their mothers after their fathers left. Her own father had left. Angel had left. Multiple times depending on how you looked at it. Riley probably would have walked out on her if she hadn’t dumped him first.

“I promise I’ll be back soon as I can,” he said quietly, “but I’ve gotta go away for a bit.”

Go away? He’d said more than that, but once she heard those words, the rest faded away. He was going away? He was leaving her? _Men always leave,_ she thought numbly.

“Buffy? Buffy-love?” Spike was sitting on the bed now beside her, looking concerned. “It’s alright. Told you, I’m coming back, yeah?”

Coming back? He was coming back? So he was just going out of town and not really leaving her? “Where are you going? _Why_ are you going?” Unless he planned to get formula somehow, he was obviously intending to leave Thursday with her. Considering he got antsy if their patrols stretched on too long, it had to be pretty damn important.

He looked away from her and stood up, beginning to pace. Whatever was going on had him really agitated. Was it Drusilla? He’d said the letter meant she’d given up, but the ho-bag was crazy. What if she’d changed her mind?

“No easy way to say this really,” he muttered, shoving his hands through his hair. “It’s like this, see? I’m off to get my bloody soul back.” He continued on in a rush before she could respond to that stunning announcement. “Not through any of that cursed and no happiness rubbish. There’s this bloke in Africa – demony sort – who can call back souls. Trick is, you have to pass these trials, or he’ll bloody well eat the sodding thing. No worries,” he said at her dismayed look, “I can pass ‘em. I’ve had lots of crap thrown my way, I have, and I’m still kickin’, aren’t I?”

Buffy just stared at him for a moment, then she exploded up from the bed and grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him slightly. “You’re off to do _what_? Why would you…? You don’t… I love you without one, you stupid dope!”

Of course, she’d loved him _with_ one too, and she had to admit there had been a sort of extra _something_ when he’d been sharing with Thursday. Like the soul had been the mocha in the mocha chocolate chunk ice cream that was Spike. He was still delicious chocolate chunk ice cream, but he was missing the sort of mature depth the coffee flavor brought with it. Despite that, there was a voice screaming in her head that he would essentially _die_ if he got his soul. That souled and unsouled could only ever be completely and utterly different.

“I know,” Spike said with a smile as he reached up to cup her cheek. “Not about you, though, pet. This is for Thursday, so she has someone other than Great Grandpa Wanker who knows what’s what with the whole souled up blood drinker gig.”

The fact that their daughter craved human blood was something Buffy tried really hard not to think too much about. “Okay, you have a point there, but this is insane,” she argued. “Xander can help her when she gets old enough to worry about it. He thinks some types of canned dog food smell really good, but he doesn’t eat them… probably.”

Spike snorted and gave her a look. “Much as I admire the boy’s iron self-control, that’s not the same thing, and you know it. Besides, there’s more to it than that.” He pulled away from her, wrapping his arms around himself. “When I was human, I never really felt quite right in my own skin. Always felt like parts of me were locked away while others… just weren’t _there_.” He started pacing. “Tried writin’ to get some of it out, yeah? But it was all just… drivel. Pretty words with no real meaning. No punch to ‘em.”

He stopped and took several long, deep breaths. He tended to breathe just out of habit, but she’d figured out that the deep ones were a sort of comfort action. This was really hard for him. She almost told him to stop. Almost told him again that he didn’t need the soul. He really did have a point about Thursday, though. And… he seemed to _want_ the soul. An evil demon held back only by love and a government pain chip actively _wanted_ a soul.

That was…. It was unbelievably huge. She couldn’t even wrap her mind around that concept. Without his soul, Angel had hurt and killed people to keep from getting it back. Spike was willing to be parted from Thursday for however long it would take and to undergo all these trials just to get his.

“When Dru turned me, it was…. It was like suddenly being able to see in color, but having to give up on seein’ things far away. Becoming a demon unlocked the things trapped inside and filled up some of the holes while the soul buggering off opened up new ones. Everything seemed new and vivid and right there! Even the poetry was different. Still awful, but it had more heart to it, you know? More depth and punch. It just lacked…” he trailed off with a slight frown, gesturing vaguely as if trying to gather his thoughts.

“Soul, I s’pose,” he said with a pained smile. “The ones I wrote for you, for Valentines? They weren’t exactly good or anything, but –”

“Set aside all you know and take my hand,” Buffy recited quietly. “We’ll fly away now to a better land. We’ll dance together under twilight skies. And I’ll watch forever in your eyes.”

Spike’s look of bewildered vulnerability made her heart ache. He was obviously stunned that she had bothered to memorize any of them.

“I know most of them by heart,” she said. “I’d have them all memorized, but baby, slaying, and studying takes up a lot of my time.”

He swallowed and glanced away, looking suspiciously like he was blinking back tears. “Anyway,” he finally said, his voice a little shaky, “what it all comes down to is this: with Thursday’s soul, I felt almost… _whole._ I stopped believin’ that destiny rot a long time ago, but it’s almost like –” He stopped abruptly, a thoughtful look on his face. “No. That’s not it. It’s more like them people who feel they aren’t the right sex. I’m definitely all man, through an’ through,” he smirked and gave her a suggestive brow wiggle, “but it’s a bit like – to really be me – I have to be a souled up demon, but I was born human instead.”

If he’d been heading off to get a soul for her sake, she’d have punched him in the nose and chained him to the bed again until he came to his senses. If it had just been for Thursday, she’d have tried to convince him to wait and see if it was even necessary. But this…. He wanted to feel whole. She couldn’t stand in the way of that.

She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them to look directly at Spike. “How exactly do you plan to get to Africa?”

“Stow away on a cargo boat,” he answered immediately, though he seemed surprised that she was asking. “Should be enough rats to keep me going. If not….” He shrugged. “Not like I’ll starve to death, is it?”

“Okay, that’s just stupid. You’re not doing that.” He was planning on taking a _boat_? That would take forever. And the whole rat thing? Major yuckage.

“Buffy,” he protested.

She cut him off with a raised hand. “What? It’s dumb. You have to know this. I have a better idea.”

“You… what?” Poor little vampire. He looked so confused. She smiled.

“I have a better idea. I’ve been the Slayer since I was fifteen.” Her smile got wider. “I think that entitles me to a few weeks of paid vacation and access to the company jet, don’t you?”

Spike’s jaw dropped and he was rendered utterly speechless for a good ten seconds at least. “I… you….” He blinked. “That’s bloody brilliant, love.”

“Uh-huh,” she agreed, pleased with herself. She walked towards him, getting close enough to hook her thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans.

He lightly cupped her cheek. “You sure about this? Goin’ with me? Your mates’ll miss you, and the Hellmouth –”

“My ‘mates’ are used to when I visited my dad over the summer.” Back when her dad still at least pretended to care. She took a deep breath and pushed that thought away. “And the Hellmouth slows way down around this time of year. I’ll have a talk with the Council, and once I’ve finished my finals, you, me, and Thursday will go to Africa. Okay?”

“Got it all sorted, do you?” he asked, leaning in to nibble at her neck.

“Uh-huh,” she confirmed breathily. “And you can thank me by taking these off,” she tugged at his jeans, “and changing into something a bit more regimental.”

He blinked and laughed. “Like that look, do you?”

“Oh yeah. I like me a pretty man in a pretty manskirt.”

He grinned at her. God, he was beautiful when he smiled. She drank it in, the ways his eyes gleamed. The soul would weigh on him, putting shadows in those eyes, taking away a little bit of the boyish charm. He’d still be Spike, no matter what, and with his soul, there would be something extra to love. Still, she’d enjoy her chocolate chunk ice cream for as long as she could before they went to add the mocha.

 

**…**

 

The Magic Box was closed for the night, but all Willow needed to get inside was a simple unlocking spell. That was really dumb. Giles and Tara thought they were so high and mighty when it came to magic, but they couldn’t even secure the store against the one kind of person most likely to want to steal stuff. They could put monitoring spells on her though that would have them in a tizzy over something as simple as the spell she’d just used.

She still loved Tara, but she was getting really tired of all of the constant “don’t do this. No, Willow, you can’t do that.” They were treating her like a child, trying to teach her the basics even though she was way beyond them. And then there were the lectures. Both of them going on and on about how light magic worked with nature and was hardwired for instant payment from the caster or some pre-selected power object while dark magic worked against or beyond nature and was inclined to slowly extract its price from the world around the caster.

Magic was a force, like gravity or inertia. It should only matter what it was used for, not the title of the book it came out of. But no, they refused to believe that. They just kept telling her she was wrong. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Buffy had finally talked to her for the first time in two months – well for the first time when it had been more than a rushed talk about being too “busy” – just to say that she was abandoning them for a few weeks to run off somewhere with her vampire sex toy and magic rape baby.

She hadn’t said where she was going or why. She’d just left, expecting them to watch over Sunnydale while she was off having fun. To be fair, the Hellmouth traditionally wasn’t very active over the summer, but Willow really didn’t feel like being fair.

She stalked into the shop, using magic to close the door behind her. Another burst of magic turned on the lights and sent various objects floating through the air. Feeling that through the monitoring spells would definitely get Tara and Giles riled up. She wondered if they were on the way to the shop, or if Tara would just wait at the dorm for her with her kicked puppy look of disappointment. Would Giles call in the morning to tell her how very disappointed he was in her? She really didn’t care anymore. All of this just because she’d healed the stump of her arm. It wasn’t like she’d regrown a new one using the “dark” arts. And why would that be such a bad thing, anyway? So what if it went against nature? It was magic.

She could, though. Regrow her arm. It would take a lot more than the four books Xander had brought to the hospital for her, but she could do it. Eyes narrowed in consideration, she made her way up to where the forbidden books were kept. She made a grasping and pulling motion with her remaining hand and the door to the safe flew off. She levitated the books out, holding them in the air as she sucked out the magic.

She moaned softly, her eyes rolling into the back of her head as the power flowed into her. Her entire body tingled with the rush. She could even feel it in the missing part of her arm. Waves of magic, surging in and around her. She languidly reached out with her good arm to grab her stump and _pulled_. She screamed with the pain of it, but kept going. Al. Most. _There!_

She just stood there for a moment, gasping with equal parts exhaustion and exhilaration. There were still some books left. Pulling out more power took care of the exhaustion nicely. A magical pick-me-up. Nothing dark or sinister about that.

She smiled suddenly as she stared at her arm. Black and scaly with spines along the outer edge and three claws, one of them opposable. It was perfect. Buffy wanted them to watch over Sunnydale while she was gone? Willow could do that. She’d make sure it was perfect.

Just like her new arm. Her new strength. Her new, beautiful self.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Important note: This is the end of Thursday’s Child. It’s been a wild ride. Thank you for coming along on it with me. The storyline will be picked up in the sequel, Friday’s Child, where Buffy and Spike deal with Spike’s soul and Willow’s further descent into darkness.


End file.
